EDINBURGH NEW 



PHILOSOPHICAL JOURNAL. 



Biography of M. D'Aubuisson de Voisins, Engineer -in-Chief 

 and Director of Mines. By M. De BouchepORN, Mining 

 Engineer. 



(Continued from page 16.) 



But the first occupations of the new engineer-in-chief were 

 such as pertained to his own profession. Independently of 

 the contentious and administrative pai-t, to which he always 

 paid particular attention, every year he went round the whole 

 arrondissement on horseback ; that is to say, all the extensive 

 country which lies between Toulouse and Bordeaux, Foix and 

 Bayonne, not only inspecting the great mines of coal and 

 iron, but visiting, one by one, the numerous forges of Landes, 

 Perigord, and Ariege, with a cai^efulness of observation 

 which was one of the traits of his character. For a long 

 time this activity was sustained unimpaired, notwithstanding 

 advanced age ; and it cannot be without utility to mention 

 or recall such examples. But among the works which fell 

 under his inspection, one object of the greatest importance 

 at first claimed ail his solicitude, and soon required th« re- 

 sources of his decision and knowledge, — the extensive iron 

 mines of the valley of Vicdessos in the Ariege, which then 

 supplied upwards of fifty forges (now upwai-ds of eighty), 

 and which afforded employment, in the extraction and trans- 

 port of the mineral alone, to ahnost the entire population 

 of the four communes. These mines were then given up 

 to the blind operations of a body of men, who, mining the 

 gi'ound without prudence and without a guide, were endan- 

 gering at once their own lives and the future state of the 



VOL. XLV. NO. XC. — OCTOIiEK 1H1>^. 1' 



