THE 



EDINBURGH 

 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 



Art. I. — Historical Notice of the Life and Works of M. 

 Breguet. By Baron Fourier, Secretary of the Academy 

 of Sciences. 



M./ Louis Breguet, a celebrated artist, and a man of the 

 most exalted character, occupied in the academy one of the si- 

 tuations reserved for those distinguished individuals who, by 

 discoveries of the first order, have improved the applications of 

 science. Never had this distinction been more justly conferred. 

 His career exhibits a long series of ingenious and useful inven- 

 tions. He has elevated in an extraordinary degree the art of 

 measuring time with precision, — an art which is perhaps the 

 most difficult, and doubtless the most important which human 

 industry has produced. He has enriched with a number of 

 new methods the trade of clock-making, navigation, astronomy, 

 and physics. 



The Abbe Marie, a professor in the university of Paris, ob- 

 served in young Breguet all the indications of a remarkable in-/ 

 tellect, and he persuaded him to devote himself with ardour to 

 the study of geometry. His family, however, though once 

 opulent, had from their profession of the reformed religion 

 been driven from France, and had lost a great part of their 

 fortune. Domestic afflictions were added to the calamities of 

 civil dissensions. His father died in a foreign land. His mo- 

 ther married a second time, and destined her son to the pro- 

 fession which he has so successfully pursued. 



France and the arts are deeply indebted to the generous in- 



VOL. VII. NO. II. OCT. 18S7. o 



