THE AGE OF ELECTRICITY. 155 



to infuse, like Descartes, Newton, and Leibnitz, original principles into 

 mathematical doctrines, or, like jSTewton, to be the first in applying- to 

 the sky and extending to the whole universe tlie terrestrial dynamics of 

 Galileo; but Laplace was born to perfect, to search into everything, to 

 remove all bounds, to solve that which may have seemed insolvable. 

 He would have completed the science of the heavens if it were possible 

 to complete it. - - - Science was the object of his life; science has 

 made his memory imperishable." 



You also may claim as your own one of the founders of geology in 

 France. Like the author of the Mecanique Celeste, filie de Beau- 

 mont was a scion of a great tiimily, whose name was already prominent 

 in the history of parliaments, lie had no sooner graduated from the 

 I^^cole des Mines than he was, jointly with Dufreuoy, commissioned 

 to make a geological map of France. After preparing for their work 

 by travels abroad, especially to England, the two engineers spent many 

 years in laboriously exploring every part of the country. The result 

 of their gigantic work was the publication of a celebrated map which 

 has served as a model, of which the geologists of to-day can only com- 

 plete the details. At the same time, V'Aie de Beaumont soared to the 

 loftiest conceptions in regard to the structure of the terrestrial strata, 

 and recognizing no other criterion than that afforded by demonstrated 

 facts, he did not hesitate to criticise the doctrines of his tutors. In 

 spite of the dryness of his subjects, he knew liow to arrest attention by 

 his style, from which elegance was not exclnded by accuracy, a praise 

 that can seldom be made in our days. Some of his pages on the physi- 

 ography of the Vosges have often been cited as bearing the marks of 

 the sweetest poetry. Allow me to again borrow from it: 



"The systems of mountains are at one and the same time the most 

 dehcate and the most general features of the projections on the surface 

 of the globe. They are at one and the same time the quintessence of 

 topography, and the most characteristic marks of the upheavals which 

 the surface of the globe has exi)erienced. They are the mutnal bond 

 that unites the daily operation of the elements as deternuned by the 

 present relief of the earth with the events that gave this relief its shape 

 in the past. When it was sought to coordinate the component parts 

 of the vast cond)ination of signs with which the hand of time has 

 engraved the history of the globe on its surface, it was found that the 

 mountains are the capital letters of the immense manuscript, and that 

 each system of mountains contains a chapter of it." 



It alfords me special pleasure to now recall the name of a modest 

 savant who might, ])erhaps, experience the greatest surprise at the 

 tribute which I desire to pay to his memory. Gaugain, at one time a 

 student of the ficole Polytechnique, soon gave up industrial pursuits, 

 in which he had met with but little success, for there was nothing he was 

 less fitted for than trade, and devoted himself to scientific researches. 

 There was no luxury in his laboratory; his fond daughter was his 

 preparator; a bottle and a gold leaf constituted one of the most ingeni- 

 ous electrometers; a few spools of sewing thread were enough to rep- 

 resent electric cables. With such a crude outfit he succeeded in giving 



