EMILB PLANTAMOUR. 461 



exerted a strong regulating and stimulating influence. He was a 

 brilliant and inspiring lecturer ; and it was into his 2:5rofessoriaI work 

 that he threw the fulness of his strength, discerning, training, encour- 

 aging, and bringing forward the mathematical genius of a generation, 

 and impregnating it, in his admirable courses, with fertile germs of 

 new discovery. He was no less happy in addressing the Academy. 

 M. Faye, in his speech at the grave of Liouville, tells us that he was 

 in his prime a powerful scientific orator, and that he was equalled 

 only by Arago in ability to give to a general scientific audience a 

 sense of real insight into the abstruse conceptions of the higher 

 analysis. 



i\l. Liouville was chosen a Foreign Honorary Member of this 

 Academy in 1859, as successor to Cauchy. We have lost in him one 

 who has played an important part in the development of mathematical 

 knowledge during the past half-century. 



EMILE PLANTAMOUR* 



Emile Plantamour, Professor of Astronomy and Director of the 

 Observatory at the University of Geneva, died at Geneva, September 7, 

 1882. He was born at Geneva, May 14, 181.5, and received his eai'Iy 

 education in the old college founded by Calvin, after which he spent 

 eight years in the then celebrated school of Hofrozl. In 1833 he 

 entered the Geneva Academy, where he became one of the astronomer 

 Gautier's most promising pupils. After graduating in philosophy, he 

 resolved to make the study of astronomy the work of his life, a design 

 in which he was encouraged by Gautier, who, on account of an affection 

 of his sight, promised to vacate his chair in Plantamour's favor when 

 the latter had completed his university education. From Geneva 

 Plantamour proceeded to Paris, where he studied for two years under 

 Arago. He was also a pupil of Bessel at Konigsberg, where, in 1839, 

 he took the degree of Doctor, the subject of his thesis being the 

 methods of calculating the orbits of comet:^. From Konisrsberg he 

 went to Berlin, and worked for some time with Encke, who recognized 

 in his quickness of observation and aptitude for complex calculations 

 his special fitness for the career to which he intended to devote him- 

 self. On his return to Geneva Plantamour received the double 

 appointment of the Professorship of Astronomy in the Academy 



* This notice is taken chiefly from the Montlily Notices of the Eoyal Astro- 

 nomical Society of London, February, 18S3. 



