838 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



slioulder, with which, he estimated the height of mountains. His 

 methods of investigation were sometimes extraordinarily in- 

 genious. In taking the temperature, for instance, in the crater 

 of Pasto, having found his thermometer inadequate, he let down 

 some of the tin-foil wrappings of his chocolate-cakes. The tin was 

 melted. The temperature was therefore higher than the melting- 

 point of that metal, or more than 235° C. He then let down a 

 pistol-ball, which was not melted. The temperature was thus 

 found to be lower than the melting-point of lead, or less than 332° 

 C, and was therefore somewhere between the two extremes. The 

 guide who accompanied him on this adventure could not conceal 

 his nervousness at hearing the subterranean roarings of the vol- 

 cano, and, looking into the crater, asked, " What if it should burst 

 out ? " " Then we should be lost," replied Boussingault. The 

 guide answered, calmed by the coolness of his superior, '' That is 

 what I think too," In 1831 he accomplished the ascent of Chim- 

 borazo, which Humboldt had been obliged to give up, with the 

 loss of one of his instruments — and recovered the instrument. 

 Boussingault had many stories of his adventures in the South 

 American wilds, which he used to tell with much enjoyment, and 

 which his friends found very entertaining. During his travels on 

 the pampas he was attended by an Indian, who cared for him as 

 if he had been a child. He having been attacked by a violent 

 fever, the Indian saved his life by himself chewing the proper 

 food for his helpless patient and putting it into his mouth. On 

 these plains Boussingault made his investigations of curare and 

 other poisons, and of the properties of coca. He witnessed a num- 

 ber of earthquakes. On one such occasion he was obliged to drag 

 out by the feet some unfortunate persons, who had prostrated 

 themselves in front of a church in prayer, to save them from 

 being crushed by the falling building. The stupefied natives 

 made loud confessions of their sins, concerning which the chemist 

 used to remark, when telling of them in after-years, that he heard 

 some most curious stories. 



Boussingault returned to France in 1833, having gained a hhig 

 scientific reputation. The numerous contributions which he had 

 sent to the Academy, says M. Dehdrain, had revealed in him a sa- 

 gacious and intrepid observer, knowing how to see well, and en- 

 dowed with a broad critical sense. He was immediately appointed 

 Professor of Chemistry in the Scientific Faculty at Lyons, then 

 made dean of the faculty in 1837, Thdnard's successor at the 

 Sorbonne, and afterward professor in the Conservatoire des Arts 

 et Metiers in Paris — an office which he held titularly till the end 

 of his life, while he retired from active work in it in 1875, and was 

 succeeded by M. Schloesing. 



M. Boussingault's career was diversified by a short period — 



