DOLOMIEU. [FRANCE,
rested with his companions, despoiled of his collections
and his papers, and was on the point of being put to death*
Conveyed to Messina he was thrown into prison, as a
traitor to the order of which he had been a member.
It was in vain that the French government, the Institute,
the Royal Society of London, many learned men of Europe,
and the king of Spain, even, exclaimed against this de-
tention, so contrary to the rights of men; he only pro-
cured his liberty by the victory of Marengo, and the
treaty of peace which was concluded with the king of
Naples. Dolomieu during his detention had been ap-
pointed professor of mineralogy to the museum of natu-
ral history. He had scarcely arrived when he com-
menced a course of philosophical mineralogy, and
departed a little time afterwards to visit, for the last time,
the Upper Alps, which he called his cheres montagnes.
He fell ill upon his return, and died at the end of 1801,
at a moment when he projected new journies and new
discoveries, with a view of establishing in an incontesti-
ble manner, the principles of philosophical mineralogy.
This he wrote in his dungeon, with a bone and the black
from the smoke of his lamp, upon the margin of some
books which had been left with him. Dolomieu has
published a great number of works relative to the science
he cultivated, of which he had extended the limits.