It was in the year 1797, and again in 1806, that Sir Joseph was enabled to render special service to that African enterprise which lay near his heart, by enlisting in its toils a zealous German and a not less zealous Swiss—Frederick HORNEMANN and John Lewis BURCKHARDT. It was the fate of both of those enterprising men to pay the usual penalty of African exploration. HORNEMANN succumbed, after six years’ service. BURCKHARDT was spared to work for ten years. Some among the minor scientific results of his well-known travels are preserved in the Public Library at Cambridge (to which he bequeathed his manuscripts). Others of them are in the British Museum. The latter would deserve record in these pages, were it now practicable. BURCKHARDT died at Cairo on the seventeenth of October, 1817, just eleven years after his arrival in London, from Göttingen, with that letter to Sir Joseph BANKS in his pocket which, under Divine Providence, determined his work in life. Another great public service of a like kind, rendered by Sir Joseph BANKS to his country and to mankind, was his zealous encouragement of explorations in Australia. Meanwhile, a new outburst of discord in the Royal Society arose out of a well-merited honour conferred on its President by the Institute of France, in 1802. It was inevitable that a body so eminent and illustrious as the French Institute should not only feel gratitude to Sir Joseph BANKS for that liberality of spirit which had dictated, in the midst of war, his many gracious and generous acts of service to Frenchmen, but should long since have reached the conviction that they would be honouring themselves, not less than honouring him, by his reception in their midst. [Sidenote: HIS ELECTION INTO THE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE.] During the momentary lull afforded by the Peace of Amiens—when the Institute was reorganized by the hand of the great man who was proud of its badge of fellowship, even when clad in the dalmatica—they placed BANKS at the head of their eight Foreign Members. BANKS’ estimate of the honour of membership was much like NAPOLEON’S. ‘I consider this mark of your esteem,’ said BANKS, in his reply, ‘the highest and most enviable literary distinction which I could possibly attain. To be the first elected as an Associate of the first Literary Society in the world surpasses my most ambitious hopes.’