Annhnsanj Address of the President, 153 



siderablc command of analysis, entitled Considerations sur la Theorie 

 Mathematique du Jeu-, in which the question of the safety of habitual 

 and indefinite play, either against a single person of greater fortune, 

 or indifferently against any number of persons, even when the game 

 is perfectly fair and equal, is discussed and solved, and its result ex- 

 hibited in a form full of warning to those by whom gaming is pur- 

 sued as an occupation, in which success or failure is considered as 

 the gift of fortune, and not the inevitable result of calculation. 

 M. Ampere was subsequently appointed Professor of the Poly- 

 technic School, and published memoirs on the integration of 

 partial differential equations, and on other subjects, which show 

 a profound knowledge of some of the most refined and difficult 

 artifices of analysis: to him likewise we are indebted for mcs 

 nioirs on the Mathematical Theories of Electro-magnetic Cur- 

 rents, which are remarkable for the skill and ingenuity with which 

 the powers of analysis are brought to beai^ on subjects apparently 

 the most remote from their operation. His inquiry into the equa- 

 tion of Fresnel's wave surface is more remarkable as an example 

 of resolute perseverance than of success, and his last work, on the 

 Philosophy of the Sciences, showed him to be much less happj'" 

 in his metaphysical, than in his physical and analytical speculations. 

 M. Ampere was a man of great simplicity of character, and his ex- 

 traordinary fits of absence of mind w^ere not unfrequently made the 

 subject of much innocent amusement. He took no part in the cabals 

 and jealousies which too frequently disturb the peace of the world 

 of science, and he was universally respected and beloved for his 

 great integrity and the kindness of his affections. 



Antoine-Laurent de Jussieu, a name singularly illustrious in the 

 annals of botanical science, was born at Lyons in 1748. He was 

 nephew to the great Bernard de Jussieu, under whose auspices he was 

 first introduced into the scientific world of Paris, and appointed, at a 

 very early age, demonstrator of botany in the Jardin du Roi. After 

 this appointment, though originally destined for the profession of 

 medicine, he devoted himself almost exclusively to the study of 

 botany, more especially with a view to the establishment and de- 

 velopement of the natural system of arrangement, a very bold and 

 successful approximation to which had been effected by his uncle in 

 the distribution of the plants in the Garden of the Trianon.* He 

 succeeded his uncle as administrator of the Jardin desPlantes in 1779, 

 and published two memoirs of great originality and importance on 

 the relative value of characters in the distinction of the genera and 

 orders of plants. In tlie year 1789 he published his great and truly 

 classical work entitled Genera Plantarum secundum Ordines na- 

 turales disposita, which caused a total revolution in the science of 

 botany. To the modification and extension of the views contained in 



* This arrangement, made in 1759, is given by his nephew at ihe conclusion of 



his introduction to his great work, published in 1789 : though extremely imperfect 

 and in many respects erroneous, it was founded upon just principles, and was in 

 almost every respect superior to those which had been proposed by Linna-us and 

 by Tournefort. [See our last number, p. 3S. — Edit.] 



Third Series. Vol. 10 No. 59. Feb. 1837. X 



