OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. 857 



wliat the father (who died in 1834, but not until after his son had be- 

 come a successful Professor of Physics in the Academy) would have 

 most desired for him. The elder De la Hive, descended from an old 

 family in Geneva, was obliged by the political troubles of the time to 

 leave his native city, and study his profession of medicine in Edin- 

 burgh, where he first practised it. He returned to Geneva in 1802, 

 where his time was divided between the practice of his profession, his 

 duties as Professor in the Academy, responsible offices in the govern- 

 ment of his city, and the education of his two sons. Notwithstanding 

 these various and consuming cares, he found leisure for scientific re- 

 searches, particularly in electro-magnetism ; and made that best of all 

 contributions to science, viz., a son who inherited his scientific taste, 

 and was able to devote himself exclusively to its cultivation. Although 

 younger than Biot, Brewster, Faraday, and Davy, Auguste De la Rive 

 was a connecting link between that select body of chemists and phys- 

 icists and the present generation. 



In the spring of 1873, the health of De la Rive began to fail, and he 

 showed symptoms of paralysis. Nevertheless, he was able to prepare and 

 read himself, though in a feeble voice, on June 5th, his annual report to 

 the Societe de Physique et d'Histoire Naturelle, the presidency of wliich 

 he had resigned. Early in November he started for Cannes, where 

 he had taken a house for the wintei-, with his family. On the second 

 day of his journey (November 6), between Montelimart and Avignon, 

 he was struck with paralysis. He reached Marseilles, where he died 

 on the 27th of November, 1873, at the age of seventy-two, tliis fatal 

 termination of his first indications of declining health having been pre- 

 cipitated by repeated domestic bereavements. In the world of science, 

 and by the various scientific Academies of which he was an Honorary 

 Member, his loss will be deplored; in his own Academy, and the 

 city of his birth and his chosen home, he has left a void which cannot 

 easily be filled. 



