176 Memoir of the late Gaspard Monge. 



operation. — By applying, at different times, his mathematical ta- 

 lents to questions of a similar nature, and always generalizing his 

 manner of conceiving and working them, he, at last, formed a 

 scientific work on the subject; this was his Descriptive Geometry. 

 For more than twenty years he found it impossible to show to the 

 corps stationed at Mezieres the application of his geometry to 

 carpentry. He was more successful in its application to masonry; 

 he studied with great care the methods hitherto employed, and 

 simplifying them, he brought them to perfection by his geometry. 



His scientific works caused him to be appointed Acting Pro- 

 fessor of the Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, in the room 

 of Nollet and Bossut ; afterwards he was appointed Honorary 

 Professor : he then turned his views tovvard the study of many 

 phaenomena of nature ; he made numerous experiments upon 

 electricity; he explained the phaenomena which arise from capil- 

 lary attraction; was the creator of an ingenious system of meteo- 

 rology ; he examined the composition of water, having made that 

 great discovery without having any knowledge of the experiments 

 which had just before been made by Lavoisier, Laplace, and Ca- 

 vendish. He did not content himself with explaining to his pu- 

 pils in the theatre of the school the theories of science and their 

 application : he loved to conduct his disciples wherever the phae- 

 nomena of nature, or the works of art, could render these ap- 

 plications apparent and interesting. He communicated his own 

 ardour and enthusiasm to his pupils, and changed those obser- 

 vations and researches into desirable pleasiwes, which would have 

 appeared to be a disagreeable study in the confinement of a school, 

 and clothed only in abstract ideas. 



In order to bring Monge to Paris, he was appointed in 1780 

 assistant to Bossut, Professor of the Hydrodynamic Course, in- 

 stituted by Turgot. That he might reconcile the duty of the two 

 places which he now held, he lived six months at Mezieres, and 

 six months at Paris. The same year he was admitted into the 

 Academy of Sciences ; and on the death of Bezout in 1/83, he 

 was chosen to succeed that celebrated examiner of the naval ser- 

 vice. The Marquis de Castries invited Monge several times to 

 write another elementary course of the mathematics for the youths 

 of the naval service, but Monge always refused to comply. ^' Be- 

 zout," said he, " has left a widow with no other fortune than her 

 late husband's works, and I do not wish to take away the bread 

 from the widow of one who has rendered important services to 

 jscience and to his country." The only elementary work which 

 Monge published was his Traile de Statique; and, with the ex- 

 ception of a few passages in which greater rigour might be de- 

 sirable, the Statique of Monge is a model of logic, clearness, and 

 simplicity. 



At 



