170 EULOGY ON QUETELET. 



His iiiaii*^ural address gave brilliaut promise of bis future success. It 

 was divided iuto two parts : lu the tir»t lie showed that the locus of the 

 centers of a series of circles, tangents to two given circles of position, 

 is always a cojiic section ; in the second he exhibited a new curve 

 of the third degree, the/ocale, the locus of the foci of all the conic sec- 

 tions, determined by a transversal plane, revolving around a certain 

 point, ui)on the surface of a vertical cone. The discovery of this curve 

 was an important addition to mathematics, and the term focale is as 

 inseparably connected with the name of Quetelet, as cycloid with that of 

 Lis favorite author Pascal. Among the themes he submitted to the 

 university in addition to his address, was a Latin essay upon the ques- 

 tion whether aerolites are projected from the moon. 



On the occasion of the laying of the corner-stone of the university 

 buildings, a banquet was given, preceded by a literary meeting, at 

 which was read a poem by Quetelet upon the death of Gretry. This 

 production, full of beautiful versification and expressions of exquisite 

 sensibility, procured for him an introduction to M. Falk, minister of 

 public instruction, who, with the interest excited by a young man at 

 once a poet and a geometer, a man of letters and of science, caused hiui 

 to be nominated to a professorship at the Athenaeum of Brussels. 



His first act on arriving at Brussels was to pay his respects to Com- 

 mandant Xieuport, then in his seventy-third year, and who might be 

 said to be the only rojjresentative of the exact sciences in Belgium. He 

 had read the inaugural address of the young doctor, and appreciated, 

 as it deserved, the discovery of the focale. Stimulated by the encour- 

 agement he received, Quetelet continued his labors in this direction, 

 and published in 1819, in the Annales Belyique, an article under the 

 title of tSome new properties of the/ocale and of some other curces. This 

 was favorably noticed by Garnier, his former preceptor at Ghent, and 

 procured his election as a member of .the Belgian Academy on the 1st 

 of February, 1820. He was then twenty-four years of age. 



He soon won the high regard of his associates in the academy, anlong 

 whom were the talented Cornelissen and the renowned chemist Van 

 Mons, whose niece he afterward married. The first use he made of his 

 influence was to procure the election of his friend Dandelin and of 

 Baron Keilfenberg, third regent of the athenitum, afterward professor 

 of philosophy at the university of Louvain. The latter lodged in the 

 same house with Quetelet, and soon became avde itly attached to him. 

 He was in intimate intercourse and a great f -vr-ite with the French 

 refugees then in Brussels, and introduced to them his new iiiend. 

 Among them were such men as David, Arnault, Boryde Saint Vincent, 

 Berber, Merlin, «S:c., who, if they had been won by the ready and bril- 

 liant wit of Keifi'enberg, were equally attracted by the more solid quali- 

 ties of Quetelet. His relations with the refugees did not, however, pre- 

 vent him from forming other associations; he sought out and made 

 friends of the artists of the city, joined a literary society which had just 



