Biographical Memoir of Mark Augustus Pictet. 5 



duals of high names, and profound knowledge, who appreciat- 

 ed labours, which, in their own country, had been overlooked 

 from ignorance, or persecuted from malignity. 



Such was the reputation of our author, that, on the 5th of 

 May 1791, he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of 

 London ; * and he received the same honour from the Royal 

 Society of Edinburgh, on the 27th June 1796. 



When the republic of Geneva was united to France in 

 1798, Professor Pictet was one of the fourteen citizens who 

 were chosen to draw up the articles of this unequal contract ; 

 and he succeeded in procuring for his countrymen full liberty 

 of worship, the possession of their ancient patrimony, and the 

 management of tbeir own establishments. 



In the year 1801, Professor Pictet paid a visit to England, 

 Scotland, and Ireland, where he spent three months examin- 

 ing the state of the arts and sciences, which at that time was 

 but little known to the rest of Europe. He gave a detailed 

 account of this journey in a series of letters to his colleagues, 

 Avhich appeared in successive numbers of the Bibliotheque Bri- 

 tannique, j- and which were afterwards published in a separate 

 volume. 



In the year 1802, Professor Pictet was appointed a tribune 

 by the First Consul, and in 1803 he became one of the secre- 

 taries to the Upper Body. Upon the suppression of the tri- 

 bunate, he was nominated one of the five inspectors-in-chief 

 of the Imperial University of France, a situation which was 

 highly agreeable to him, and which he retained as long as 

 Geneva was united to France. During his occasional resi- 

 dence at Paris, which the duties of this office imposed upon 

 him, he was named a member of the consistory of the reform- 

 ed church. In this situation, he was enabled to promote the 

 interests of the reformed church in Geneva, by bringing it in- 

 to correspondence with that of France ; and he afterwards 



* In the year 1791* Professor Pictet communicated to the Royal Society 

 a paper, entitled, Considerations on the convenience of measuring an Arch 

 of the Meridian, and of the Parallel of Longitudes, having the Observatory 

 of Geneva for their common intersection, which was published in the Phil. 

 Trans, for 1791, vol. lxxxi, p. lOfi. 



+ See Tom. xvii., xviii., xix., xx., and xxi. 



