216 Memoir of M D^Aubuisson de Voisins. 



their results, and of which M. Col. Poncelet, his skilful 

 friend, has demonstrated the importance, by giving to them 

 the aid of his own experiments and high name. 



These scientific researches, however, did not exclusively 

 occupy M. D'Aubuisson's attention ; he required to be fami- 

 liarly known to enable one to perceive how his fine and active 

 intellect could extend the circle of its ideas, and how his ima- 

 gination could rise above the severity of science. Free from 

 superfluities, nothing was absolutely strange to him in the 

 domain of intelligence ; and, during the period in particular 

 that we have followed his career as a man of science, never 

 did he remain behind the general movement of mind and 

 events. In 1825, he published, or at least distributed among 

 his friends, a small work which wanted neither political im- 

 portance nor literary merit, under the title of Considerations 

 on the Boyal Authority and on Local Administrations. We 

 find it remarkable, and we are not alone in this opinion, for 

 a certain nervousness of thought and style, as well as a ma- 

 turity and loyalty of views, so desii'able, and perhaps too little 

 known in all works on politics. But we shall make no further 

 remarks upon it, but return to the works which ought espe- 

 cially to occupy us, — those of the man of science. 



The hydraulic questions of which we have spoken, carried 

 M. D'Aubuisson's mind to a kind of research which was too 

 much in harmony with his tastes and scientific aptitude not 

 to induce him to prosecute it as far as possible : he knew well 

 how to turn in this direction not only the works of his choice, 

 but also such as he undertook officially as an engineer. Such 

 was the custom of his whole life ; in every particular appli- 

 cation of science he was called upon to make, he only saw 

 the means of annving at some result of more general impor- " 

 tance. Of this, we find a new example in a valuable series 

 of researches which M. D'Aubuisson undertook preparatory 

 to his great undertaking regarding the waters of Toulouse ; 

 they have the merit of belonging to a particular branch of 

 the dynamics of fluids, which may be said to have originated 

 experimentally with M. D'Aubuisson, namely, that which re- 

 lates to the movements of the air. As early as 1824, he en- 

 gaged in experiments on very curious blowing-machines, much 



