REPORT ON THE TRAxNSACTIONS OF THE SOCIETY OF PHYSICS 

 AND NATURAL HISTORY OF GENEVA FROM JULY, LS7:3, TO 

 JULY, 1874. 



Bv Tkof. M. a. de Candolle, Pkesidext. 



[Translated for the Smitbsoniau lustitntiou by M. A. Henry.] 



GENTLE3IEN : It is customary to divide tliis report into two parts, 

 one appropriated to personal matters, and especially to the notice of the 

 members deceased during the year, the other to the labors of the society. 

 In this case the first part must unhappily be long, but in view of the 

 serious losses sustained, you will find, I am sure, that I have not entered 

 too much in detail. 



I. — NECEOLOGICAL NOTICES. 



We have this j'ear lost three of our ordinary members, Messrs. Alexan- 

 dre Prevost, Gosse, and de la Eive, and four of our honorary members, 

 Agassiz, liamon de la Sagra, Fee, and Quetelet. 



Alexandre-Pierre Prevost, doctor »f sciences, was grandson of the 

 professor of philosophy and physicist, Pierre Prevost. He made good 

 progress in his studies at Geneva, and comideted them by a sojourn at 

 Berlin. The branch with which he was principally occupied in the lat- 

 ter city was animal physiology. Certain circumstances, eas3^ to compre- 

 hend, induced him to enter into a banking-house of considerable note 

 in Loudon, which had for a long time been under the direction of his 

 father and his uncles, but his health was affected by the climate of Eng- 

 land, and after a few years he returned to Geneva. His scientific tastes 

 then revived and were stimulated by the encouragement of his near 

 relatives, and by his father-in-law, M. Auguste de la Rive. He published 

 in the quarto Mcinoircs of our society (vol. xi) researches upon the ner- 

 vous system of the head of the conger; in 1843 in the Bibllotluque Uni- 

 rerse/Ze, and in 1859 in the Jl n7« res, which supplemented the scientihc part 

 of the same journal, two memoirs upon binocular vision ; in the Archives of 

 the same year, 1859, an essay upon the mathematical theory of music, not 

 to speak of numerous articles, such as reviews or criticisms in this journal, 

 of which he was one of the editors. Alexandre Prevost served our 

 society for a long time as secretary, and was always explicit and exact 

 in the conscientious discharge of the duties of the office. He died on 

 the 21st of July, 1873, in England, after a long illness, at the age of 

 only fifty- two years. 



Dr. Andre-Louis Gossc was son of Henry-Albert Gosse, that savant, so 

 full of enthusiasm and originalitv, who, with the founders of the Helvetic 



101 



