BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF PROFESSOR DUMAS. 257 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF PEOFESSOR DUMAS. 



By a. W. HOFMANN.* 



THIS able chemist and distinguished man of science, now eighty 

 years of age, and still fulfilling, with almost youthful freshness, 

 the duties of Permanent Secretary to the Academy of Sciences, has 

 been identified with the progress of science in France during half a 

 century, and has gone through an amount of active, diversified labor 

 which has hardly a parallel among his contempoi'aries. 



Jeajh-Baptiste Andre Dumas was born at Alais, in the department 

 of Gard, July 14, 1800. His father was clerk of the municipality, 

 and a cultivated man. He early studied Latin in the college of his 

 native town, and became interested in the classical traditions of his 

 neighborhood, Avhich had many imposing remains of Roman antiquity. 

 But the situation was one calculated to foster an interest also in 

 the objects of nature and the processes of science and art. There 

 were coal-mines, glass-works, brick-yards, tile-works, manufactories of 

 coarse earthenware, lime-kilns, vitriol-factories, and mines of iron, 

 lead, and antimony, all in the immediate region of Alais. The lessons 

 of these industries were not lost upon young Dumas, who, at fourteen 

 years of age, had acquired a rudimentary knowledge of the several 

 natural sciences. At this time he was apj^renticed to an apothecary. 

 But there was not much opportunity of scientific study, and this, added 

 to the political and military distraction of the time, insi^ired him with 

 a strong desire to quit his native town. 



In 1816 Dumas accordingly went to Geneva, Here he found scope 

 for study and opportunities to begin a career. He attended the lec- 

 tures on botany by M, de Candolle, on physics by M. Pictet, and on 

 chemistry by M. Gaspard de la Rive. He had the superintendence of 

 a large pharmaceutical laboratory, which was found deficient in appa- 

 ratus. But a supply was rapidly improvised. To obtain gas- jars, 

 lamp-chimneys were closed with watch-glasses, cemented on with wax. 

 An old bronze syringe was turned into an air-pump, and barometer- 

 tubes bent over a flame completed the stock of apparatus. Gradually 

 the laboratory improved. As the ambition of the young Professor 

 grew, he began to long for a chemical balance. This wish also was 

 satisfied ; with the aid of some workmen in a watch-maker's shop an 

 instrument was constructed which enabled him to begin his analytical 

 researches. He here commenced earnestly the study of chemistry, 

 and began at once the work of research. One of his little discoveries 

 had the following result : When analyzing various sulphates and other 

 salts of commerce, he had observed that the water they contained was 



* Condensed from the excellent "Life of Dumas" in "Xature," February 6, 1880. 



VOL. XTIII. lY 



