EULOGY ON QUETELET. 175 



vatory, be was sent to the principal establishments of the kind iu Europe, 

 and on this tour he was accompanied by his wife. He had married on 

 the 20th of September, 1825, the danghter of a French physician, and 

 the niece of the chemist Van Mens. To an intimate acquaintance with 

 the usages of polite society this lady united a ready wit and not in- 

 considerable literary attainments. She was also an excellent musician. 

 Obliged at an early age to preside iu the house of her father, where 

 w^as congregated the best society of Brussels, she acquired ease and 

 grace of manner, and w^as well prepared to assist her husband when, iu 

 after years, he had arrived at distinction, and exercised a generous hos- 

 pitality toward the distinguished strangers of every country who visited 

 the observatory. During his journey, Quetelet made the acquaintance 

 " of some of the most distinguished men of the age, of Herschel, Schu- 

 macher, Grauss, Olders, and others, and at Weimar he had the pleasure 

 of assisting in the celebration of the eightieth birthday of Goethe, with 

 whom he remained eight days. The great poet showed him his experi- 

 ments in optics, and entertained him with his theory of colors. He was 

 also present at the conference of German naturalists, held at Heidel- 

 berg on the 18th of September. 



While waiting the completion of his plans in regard to the observa- 

 tory, he, iu conjunction with M. Gamier, established the i^eriodical La 

 Correspondance Matliematique et Physique, to which the most eminent 

 men of the age were willing contributors. This publication continued 

 without intermission till 1839, when Quetelet was obliged to resign its 

 supervision ou account of the pressing nature of his engagements as 

 permanent secretary to the academy, to which office he had been elected 

 in lS3i. 



The erection of the observatory was decided upon on the 8th of June, 

 1826. It was constructed according to the jilans of Quetelet, but was 

 not finished till after many vicissitudes, occasioned principally by the 

 political events of 1830. He had been appointed to the directorship in 

 1818, but the observatory was not comi)leted until 1832. He then im- 

 mediately commenced his labors, of which it would occupy too much 

 space to give even a list. They included meteorology, terrestrial physics, 

 astronomy, the collection of materials for the Annales Annuaires of the 

 observatory, and the other special works in which he has brought together 

 the results of his researches. In the early days of the observatory, all 

 the attention of Quetelet was directed toward meteorology- and terres- 

 trial physics. The elements of these two sciences had been almost totally 

 neglected in Belgium, and his first desire was to correct this grave error, 

 a task in which he perfectly succeeded. He has given the results of his 

 persevering observations in his works Upon the climate of Belgium, and 

 Upon the physics of the Globe, and thus the basis of the meteorology of 

 Belgium was established. The meteorological observations were com- 

 menced in 1833, and also the observations for the determination of the 

 latitude and longitude of the establishment. At that time Quetelet pos- 



