Jardin De Plant

I will be in Paris In a few days and one place I am dying to see is the The Jardin De Plant. The Jardin was built in the 17th century but in the 18th it Came under the scientist Buffon’s curation. Buffon erected a famous natural history museum ( setting of a scene in La Jetee) which was called The Museum of Comparative Anatomy back in the day. Also back in the day Buffon was engaged in a a debate with Thomas Jefferson over Buffon’s theory that animals in the western hemisphere were smaller and degraded in all attributes the further west one would go. Thomas Jefferson cited Mammoth fossils as evidence against such a theory, although Jefferson also stated that Mammoths were man eaters still living beyond the Columbia river…if only!