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President, and in the year following became President of the 
Institute. His researches have extended to almost every part 
of the globe; but as a Frenchman he has not failed in his duty 
to his own country, having constructed a Geological Map of 
France. He has also devoted much of his attention to the 
phenomena of volcanic action. The estimation in which his abi- 
lities as a scientific man are held is so high, that whenever the 
French Government has had occasion to issue instructions to 
persons engaged in voyages of discovery, M. Elie de Beau- 
mont has been constantly requested to draw them up. The 
career of M. Regnault has been different. He was elected 
a Member of the Institute in the department of Chemistry, 
and has specially distinguished himself by his researches with 
respect to specific heats, the dilatation, the elastic force, the 
density and compressibility of gases and fluids. In short, he 
occupies so high a place amongst the chemists of France that 
those who are interested in the welfare of the Academy will 
deem it an honour to have him enrolled amongst its Members. 
M. Augustin-Louis Cauchy, the third name on the paper, is 
a veteran analyst, who has carried his scientific conquests into 
almost every region of Mathematics. He is also well known in 
these countries as a philosopher who has applied the resources 
of analysis to the discussion of the most difficult questions of 
Physical Optics. IfI were to enumerate the whole of his pub- 
lished works, and give the Academy an idea of their contents, 
the task would, I am sure, occupy me for the greater part of 
a day. As regards the gentlemen who are proposed for elec- 
tion in the department of Polite Literature, I feel that it be- 
comes me to say but little. For me to rise and advocate the 
claims of a Macaulay or a Prescott would be quite out of 
place. The Members of the Academy know that they will do 
themselves honour, and increase the respect in which the Aca- 
demy is held by learned bodies abroad, if they enrol amongst 
their Members men of such world-wide celebrity as these. 
Macaulay, the historian, the critic, the poet, the philosopher, 
—however individuals may find fault with his history, dissent 
