Necrology of Count Chaptal. 127 



I 



vantage of proximity, but to infer from thence that the rate of a chro- 

 nometer must necessarily be affected by its removal within the sphere 

 of the ordinary magnetic influence existing in a ship, appears to us 

 not more legitimate than to infer, that, because a chronometer will 

 stop if put in the fire, it will necessarily go ill in the ordinary temper- 

 ature of a sitting-room. 



We are far from imagining, that, because so much has been done 

 for the improvement of chronometers, there is nothing left to be de- 

 sired ; and we shall rejoice unfeignedly at any suggestion which may 

 enable those who are engaged with the delicate task of constructing 

 them, to arrive at this, and by more simple and certain means. Our 

 object in writing to you on this occasion, is to convince those whom 

 it chiefly concerns, that the errors, and causes of errors, on which 

 your respectable correspondents have animadverted, cannot, in the 

 present state of chronometrical science, have any appreciable effect 



in practice 



We are, Sir, your obedient servants 



Parkinson h Fkodsham 



'Change Alley, November 14, 1833. 



Art. XXIIL — Necrology of Count Chaptal; translated and com- 

 municated by Dr. Lewis Feuchtwanger. 



Jean Antoine Chaptal, Count of Chantaloup, was born in the 

 year 1756, at Nozaret, Dep. de la Lozere. After having finished . 

 his studies in the college of Rhodes, he went to Montpelier, for the 

 purpose of learning the medical sciences under one of his uncles, at 

 that time, professor of the school in that city ; after receiving the 

 degree of doctor, he went to Paris, to devote himself to chemistry, 

 for which he had a particular disposition. He then obtained the new- 

 ly created chair of chemistry in Montpelier, which, possessing the pe- 

 culiar talents of an orator, extraordinary memory and all other requi- 

 sites of a superior teacher, he filled with not uncommon success; and 

 it was here, through his theoretical and practical pursuits, that he 

 founded his great reputation. In the year 1790, he published his 

 Elemens de Chimie in three volumes, which passed through three 

 editions in French, and was translated into other languages. He es- 

 tablished several chemical institutions, and among others that of Be- 

 rard. General Washington, endeavored to induce him to emigrate 





