BABINET, JACQUES. 



BACHE, HAETMAN. 



51 



University of Innspruck, all the professors of 

 which are Jesuits, of its right to elect the rec- 

 tor of the university. The majority of the 

 Diet, therefore, in union with its president, 

 M. Landeshauptmann, refused to admit the 

 new rector, who, in virtue of his position, is a 

 member of the Diet, and the Government dis- 

 solved the Diet. In the Diet of Galicia there 

 was, as usual, a conflict between the Poles and 

 Ruthenians. The latter advocated a law intro- 

 ducing direct elections to the Reichsrath ; but 

 the Polish majority voted it down. In the 

 Diet of Lower Austria a resolution was pre- 

 sented calling upon the Government to hasten 

 the constitutional introduction of direct voting 

 for members of the Reiohsrath. In the Bohe- 

 mian Diet a resolution was proposed in favor 

 of the appointment of a committee for the 

 modification of the present system of electing 

 the Diet. 



The session of the Eeichsrath, which was 

 opened on December 12, 1872, was likely to 

 exceed in importance any previous one. In 

 order to prevent the frequent refusal of mem- 

 bers of the minority to attend the Eeichsrath, 

 the Government, immediately after the open- 

 ing of the session, proposed a new electoral 

 law, the principal features of which were as 

 follows: The members of the House of Depu- 



ties are no longer to be chosen by the Diets 

 of the several provinces, but directly by the 

 people. Their number will be increased by 

 one hundred and twenty. The deputies to be 

 chosen by each province will be distributed 

 (in accordance with the law regulating the 

 electipn of the .provincial diets) into the four 

 groups of 1. The holders of large real es- 

 tates (or those paying the highest taxes); 

 2. The towns, market-towns, and industrial 

 places; 3. The Chambers of Commerce and 

 Industry ; 4. The rural communities. In the 

 groups of large holders of real estate, and of 

 the rural communities, the increase in the 

 number of deputies will be fifty per cent. For 

 the towns and rural communities, the electoral 

 districts will in future be arranged so that in 

 every district only one deputy may be chosen. 

 Every one who has a right to vote is eligible 

 in every district of any of the countries repre- 

 sented in the Reichsrath. The deputies are 

 elected for a term of six years. For the group 

 of rural communities, they are chosen indi- 

 rectly, through electors; in all the other 

 groups, directly by the voters. 



The report made by the Minister of Finances 

 was most favorable. He expects to be able to 

 close the financial year (1873) by a surplus of 

 three and a half million florins. 



B 



BABINET, JACQUES, a French physicist and 

 astronomer, born at Lusignan, March 5, 1794; 

 died in Paris, October 24, 1872. He was a pu- 

 pil of M. Binet at the Imperial Lyceum Napo 

 leon, entered the Polytechnic School in 1812, 

 and was subsequently transferred to the higher 

 Military School of Metz, whence he graduated 

 as sub-lieutenant of artillery. He soon aban- 

 doned a military career for that of a teacher, 

 and was successively Professor of Mathe- 

 matics at Fontenoy la Cointe, at Poitiers, 

 and at the College of St. Louis in Paris. From 

 1825 to 1828 he delivered courses of lectures 

 on meteorology at the Athenaeum; in 1838 

 he succeeded Savary at the College of France, 

 and two years later he entered the Academy 

 of Sciences as the successor of Dulong. He 

 became soon after Assistant Astronomer at 

 the Bureau of Longitudes. He was decorated 

 with the cross of the Legion of Honor in 1831. 

 M. Babinet possessed a high degree of me- 

 chanical genius, and invented numerous valu- 

 able instruments and machines for the facili- 

 tation of physical research ; among these were 

 an important improvement of the pneumatic 

 machine, which has long been known as Babi- 

 net's improved pneumatic machine ; a hy- 

 grometer, for measuring the absorption of liq- 

 uids ; a goniometer for measuring and deter- 

 mining the angles of refraction in transparent 

 substances, etc. He had also devised a new 

 method of cartography, by which he produced 



what he termed homolographic maps; i. e., 

 charts or maps in which the spaces on the 

 earth and those on the maps preserved a fixed 

 relation to each other. M. Babinet was a vo- 

 luminous writer on scientific topics, and added 

 very largely to the sum of human knowledge 

 in regard to them. He published an admirable 

 elementary treatise on "Descriptive Geom- 

 etry," a valuable series of " Studies and Lect- 

 ures upon the Sciences of Observation and their 

 Practical Applications," in eight vols. ; and 

 nearly thirty memoirs, some of them of great 

 length, on astronomy, meteorology, mathemat- 

 ics, theoretical and applied physics, most of 

 which appeared first in the " Annals of Phys- 

 ics and Chemistry," or in the transactions of 

 the Academy. Yet this able and accomplished 

 physicist sometimes fell into error from too 

 strict adherence to preconceived theories ; as 

 when, in 1866, he published an elaborate me- 

 moir to demonstrate the folly of attempting to 

 lay a telegraphic cable across the Atlantic. It 

 was, he declared, an absurdity, and, even if it 

 were passible to send communications through 

 it, it would not at the longest work more than 

 two or three days. His memoir was hardly 

 printed before the admirable working of the 

 cable disproved his predictions. 



BACHE, Colonel and Brevet Brigadier-Gen- 

 eral HAKTMAN, Engineer Corps, U. S. A., an 

 eminent civil and military engineer, born in 

 Philadelphia in 1797 ; died in that city, Octo- 



