260 Royal Society: Armiversary IS'iil: Obituary Notices. 



ties of the profession in which he was embarking. He yielded to 

 the powerful fascination, and disregarding all considerations of 

 prudence, took the irrevocable step of abandoning the prospects 

 which were opening in a career to which his youth had been 

 devoted., and by which alone it had, till then, been his ambition to 

 earn fortune, reputation and independence. Confiding in his know- 

 ledge of .Acoustics, which was ever his favourite study, and in which 

 he conceived he had made discoveries, he quitted his ])rovincial do- 

 micile and repaired to th.e metropolis, as to the mart where his ac- 

 quisitions would be best valued. He arrived in Paris with but scanty 

 means of immediate support, without a friend, and unprovided with 

 a single letter of recommendation. But Fortune took him by the hand, 

 and favoured his first endeavour to obtain notice. He presented 

 himself to Biot, and communicated to him his views, and the results 

 of iiis researches in Acoustics. He met with the kindest reception 

 from that philosopher, who had himself been occupied with similar 

 inquiries, and was well qualified to appreciate the merits of Savart. 

 Biot was ever after his friend and patron, and it was chiefly through 

 his influence that Savart was, in the year 1820, appointed Professor 

 of Natural Philosophy in one of the Institutions at Paris ; an office 

 which he continued to hold till the year 18'i7, when he was nomi- 

 nated a Member of the Academy of Sciences. Soon after this he. 

 was associated with Thenard, as Conservator of the Cabinet of Phy- 

 sics of the College of France. Thus raised to a state of independ- 

 ence, he had full leisure to devote himself to the science he had ever 

 particularly cherished, and of which his labours have greatly ex- 

 tended the boundaries. His admirable researches on the laws of 

 the vibrations of solid bodies of different forms and kinds, and in 

 particular, of cords, of membranes, of rods, whether straight, or bent, 

 or of an annular shape ; of flat discs, and of solids oi' revolution, both 

 solid and hollow, have furnished results of great value and import- 

 ance. His investigation of the structure and functions of the seve- 

 ral parts of the vocal organs, and his theory of the voice, both in 

 man and in the lower animals, show great originality of research, 

 and have thrown considerable light on a very difficult department 

 of Physiology. 



Savart was elected, in the year 1839, a Foreign Member of the 

 Royal Society, an honour which his unconquerable prejudice against 

 the English, and everything emanating from England, prevented 

 his ever acknowledging. His premature death, on the 16th of March, 

 1840, has, unfortunately for science, arrested the brilliant career of 

 discovery, which he was pursuing with so much ardour and success, 

 and will, it is to be feared, deprive the world of the fi'uits of many of 

 his unfinished labours*. 



After the reading of the biographical memoirs, the following gen- 

 tlemen were elected Officers and Council for the ensuing year: — 



President. — The Marquis of Northampton. Treasurer. — Sir John 

 William Lubbock, Bart., M.A. Secretaries. — Peter Mark Roget, 



* Tile materials tor the above sketch wcic funii.'slied l)v the I'linerai Ora- 



