OP ARTS AND SCIENCES. 345 



same precision with which the phister of the sculptor fits his model. 

 This is an unique undertaking ; and if, whenever the original may 

 be rediscovered, it should prove to differ materially fi'om the repro- 

 duction by Chasles, it will be more wonderful than the difference 

 between the true orbit of Nejatune and the prediction of Leverrier. 



Chasles has exhibited the power of profound scholarship and gen- 

 erous criticism in his repoi'ts upon geometry, and especially in his 

 " Aper^u historique sur TOrigine et le Developpement des Methodes en 

 Geometric." His researches led him to the conclusion that the popu- 

 lar idea of the Arabic origin of our arithmetic is erroneous, and he 

 has given a very able and ingenious argument to establish and trace 

 its Pythagorean origin and descent. 



In the seventy-fifth year of his age Chasles seemed to have expe- 

 rienced a strange form of insanity, which was caused by poison infused 

 into his too credulous ear by a miserable impostor. An accomplished 

 scholar, he was jjersuaded to embark a large property in the purchase 

 of manuscripts which were palpable forgeries. Is not this insanity ? 

 And what but insanity would have induced the belief that he had veri- 

 table manuscripts of Julius Csesar and of some of the Apostles ? What 

 but insanity would have maintained his pertinacious belief in the authen- 

 ticity of his manuscripts, after the wretch had confessed the villany ? 

 What but insanity would have induced the first geometer of France to 

 soil the immortality of Newton ? * To the honor of France be it said 

 that the attack upon the English geometer found no symj^athy there ; 

 but, on the contrary, while the forgeries were read before the Academy, 

 the colleagues of Chasles hid their countenances with grief, at the dark 

 cloud which had obscured this brilliant intellect. 



Chasles was a polished gentleman as well as a scholar and a 

 geometer ; and he cordially extended his hospitality to all the culti- 

 vators of his science who visited Paris. 



By the death of Baron Wilhelm von Kaulbach, at Munich, on 

 the 7th of April, Germany has lost the last of three artists who enjoyed 

 a world-wide reputation. Two of them, Overbeck and Kaulbach, were 

 Honorary Members of the American Academy, and as such have a 

 claim upon the interest of its members. The claim of Overbeck has been 

 already acknowledged by a notice written at the time of his death, in 



* One of the finest chapters of the comprehensive review of Matliematical 

 History contained in the " Aperfu Historique " is a grand homage to tlie 

 genius of Newton. 



