148 JOSEPH FOURIER. 



Chance placed Fourier duriug the voyage in the vessel in which 

 Kleber sailed. The friendship which the philosopher and the warrior 

 vowed to each other from that moment was not without some influence 

 upon the events of which Egypt was the theater after the departure of 

 Napoleon. 



He wlio signed his orders of the day, the 31emher of the Institute, Com- 

 mander-in-ckief of the Army in the East, could not fail to place an academy 

 among the means of regenerating the ancient kingdom of the Pharaohs. 

 The valiant army which he commanded had barely conquered at Cairo, 

 on the occasion of the memorable battle of the Pyramids, when the In- 

 stitute of Egypt sprung into existence. It consisted of forty-eight mem- 

 bers, divided into four sections. Monge had the honor of being the 

 first president. As at Paris, Bonapnrte belonged to the section of 

 mathematics. The situation of perpetual secretary, the tilling up of 

 which was left to the free choice of the society, was unanimously assigned 

 to Fourier. 



You have seen the celebrated geometer discharge the same duty at 

 the Academy of Sciences ; you have appreciated his liberality of mind, 

 his enlightened benevolence, his unvarying affability, his straightforward 

 and conciliatory disposition ; add in imagination to so many rare quali- 

 ties the activity which youth, which health, can alone give, and you will 

 have again conjured into existence the secretary of the Institute of 

 Egypt; and yet the portrait which 1 have attempted to draw of him 

 would grow pale beside the original. 



Upon the banks of the Nile, Fourier devoted himself to assiduous 

 researches on almost every branch of knowledge which the vast plan of 

 the Institute embraced. The Decade and the Courier of Ugjjpt will 

 acquaint the reader with the titles of his difiterent labors. 1 find 

 in these journals a memoir upon the general solution of algebraic 

 equations; researches on the methods of elimination ; the demonstra- 

 tion of a new theorem of algebra ; a memoir upon the indeterminate 

 analysis; studies on general mechanics; a technical and historical 

 work upon the aqueduct which conveys the waters of the Nile to the 

 Castle of Cairo; reflections upon the oases; the plan of statistical 

 researches to be undertaken with respect to the state of Egypt ; pro- 

 gramme of an intended exploration of the site of ancient Memphis, and 

 of the whole extent of burying-places ; a descriptive account of the 

 revolutions and manners of Egypt, from the time of its conquest bj' 

 Selim. 



I find also in the Egyptian Decade, that, on the first complementary 

 day of the year VI, Fourier communicated to the Institute the descrip- 

 tion of a machine designed to promote irrigation, and which was to be 

 driven by the power of wind. 



This work, so far removed from the ordinary current of the ideas of 

 our colleague, has not been printed. It would very naturally find a 

 place in a work of which the expedition to Egypt might again furnish 



