Biographical Memoir of M. Duhamel. S 



grand-nephew with a fatherly aftection, but judging mental 

 employment in the highest degree necessary, he undertook to 

 teach him what he had formerly known of mathematics. Like 

 those platonic souls that seek out each other as soon as they 

 are cast into the actual world, the young attorney's clerk at 

 length found the food that agreed with him, and seized it 

 with avidity. Henceforth absorbed in his retreat, by this sole 

 object of study, he soon became a more expert mathematician 

 than his uncle. 



It may well be judged, that in thus directing the attention of 

 his nephew, the good guardian of capuchins did not intend to 

 condemn him to his own profession. On the contrary, he 

 busied himself in renewing his connexions with his old compa- 

 nions. M. Peyronnet, under the authority of M. Trudaine the 

 elder, at that time founded the School of Bridges and Highways, 

 which has since become so useful and so honourable to France. 

 M. Duhamel was introduced to him, and gave such decisive proofs 

 of capacity, that he immediately admitted him among his pupils. 

 With unrelaxed assiduity he added to his acquirements, and 

 he was upon the point of leaving the school and of entering with 

 distinction into the Corps of Engineers of Bridges and High- 

 ways, when a new project of M. Trudaine's called him to another 

 branch of service. 



M. Trudaine, a distinguished member of this Academy, and 

 one of those who have contributed much to spread enlighten- 

 ed principles of administration in France, satisfied with the 

 impulse which he had given to the act of facilitating conveyance 

 by founding the School of Bridges and Highways, thought that 

 a similar procedure might operate beneficially upon a much 

 more neglected part of administration, that of Mines. 



Fortunately for France, her mineral riches will always re- 

 main the least part of those with which nature has favoured her. 

 Her vast and fertile fields, her rich pasture grounds, her vine- 

 yards so remarkable for the variety and excellence of their pro- 

 ductions, are an ample equivalent for the rareness of those 

 metallic veins which are almost always indicated by the aridity 

 and barrenness of the lands they traverse. But since we have 

 some such lands too, it might be important to examine whether 



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