CHASSELOUP-LAUBAT, MARQUIS DE. 



CHEMISTRY. 



09 



published in a series of volumes under the title 

 of "Etudes de Litterature compared" (Stud- 

 ies of Comparative Literature), 1837-1867. 

 Of these sixteen volumes, all interesting, 

 though many of them tinctured with a French- 

 man's prejudices, and greatly inferior in 

 breadth and comprehensiveness of insight to 

 the great works of M. Taine, the following are 

 the principal. Some of them have been trans- 

 late"! into English, and one or two republished 

 in this country : " Studies of Antiquity ; " 

 " Studies on the Middle Ages ; " " Studies on 

 the Sixteenth Century in France ; " " Studies on 

 Spain ; " " Studies on the English Revolution 

 and Oliver Cromwell ; " " Studies on the Eigh- 

 teenth Century in England" (two vols.); 

 " Studies of the Literature and Manners of the 

 Anirlo- Americans of the Nineteenth Century; " 

 " Studies on William Shakespeare, Mary Stu- 

 art, and L'Aretin ; " " Studies on Germany, 

 Ancient and Modem ; " " Travels of a Critic 

 in regard to Life and Books ; " " Contemporane- 

 ous Studios ; " " Questions of the Times and oth- 

 er Problems." M. Chasles received the degree 

 of doctor of letters (equivalent to our LL. D.) 

 in 1840, and was subsequently called to vari- 

 ous posts of honor connected with literature. 

 In 1837 he was made keeper of the Mazarin 

 Library ; in 1841 he was appointed Professor 

 of the Foreign Languages and Literatures of 

 Modern Europe, in the College of France. He 

 became Chevalier of the Legion of Honor in 

 1838. 



CHASSELOUP-LAUBAT,JcsTryNAPOLEo;f 

 SAMUEL PROSPER, Marquis DE, a French states- 

 man, senator, and cabinet officer, born in 

 Alexandria, Piedmont, March 29, 1805; died 

 in Paris, March 31, 1873. He was educated 

 at the Lyceum of Louis the Great, in Paris, 

 and in 1828 was appointed Auditor of the sec- 

 ond class in the Council of State. He was pro- 

 moted to be Master of Requests in 1830, and 

 sent as assistant to M. Bande, commissary of 

 the King in Algeria. He left Algeria for Tunis 

 in 1836, and took part in the siege of Con- 

 stantine. In 1837 he was elected a deputy in 

 the Legislative Assembly for the arrondisse- 

 ment of Marennes (Charente-InfeYieure), and 

 in the following year was appointed Councillor 

 of State. In 1849 he was a member of the 

 Legislative Assembly for Charente-Infdrienre. 

 and sustained the policy of the Elyee, i. e., of 

 the Prince President. In 1851 he was minister 

 of the Marine from April 10th to October 26th. 

 After the coup d'etat he entered the Corps 

 L6gislatif as a government candidate, and was 

 reSlected in 1857. He was a member of the 

 Council of Colonization under the ministry for 

 Algeria and the Colonies, created in 1858, and 

 in 1859 was called to succeed Prince Napoleon 

 as minister of that department. In this 

 capacity ho visited Algeria, to the prosperity 

 of which his administration greatly contributed. 

 In 1801 he pointed out the necessity for an 

 increase of the staff-officers of the French 

 Navy, and in November, 1862, founded an in- 



stitution called " Establishment of the Pupils 

 of the Marine," forthe education of the orphans 

 of sailors in the imperial navy. In 1867 he 

 resigned his portfolio as minister, and retired 

 from public life ; but on July, 1869, he was 

 called to succeed M. Veretry as President of 

 the Council of State, and in that capacity was 

 intrusted with the preparation of the Senate 

 decree for carrying into effect the liberal pro- 

 gramme of the message of the Emperor on the 

 12th of July, and restoring in France the 

 system of parliamentary government. The 

 Marquis de Chasseloup-Laubat was President 

 of the French Geographical Society. He was 

 promoted commander of the Legion of Honor 

 in 1851, and Grand Cross of the Legion in 

 1860. He was appointed Minister of Public 

 Instruction in 18G6. He was a man of wide 

 and generous culture, especially in matters of 

 physical science, and had been a frequent and 

 valued contributor to the Kevue ae Deux 

 Mondcs. 



CHEMISTRY. Composition of the Sun. 

 At the meeting of the British Association for 

 1873, Mr. Lockyer stated the results of his own 

 observations as also those of Huggins and 

 Secchi on the composition of the sun. His 

 own conclusions were : 



1. That the absorption of some elementary and 

 compound gases was limited to the most refrangible 

 part of the spectrum when the gases were rare, but 

 crept gradually into the visible violet part, and 

 finally to the red end of the spectrum as the pressure 

 was increased. 



2. That the absorption of the photospheric light, 

 and therefore the temperature of the photosphere or 

 the sun, was much greater than had been supposed. 



3. That the lines of compound metallic vapors lay 

 generally in the red end of the spectrum, and this 

 held good for absorption in the case of aqueous va- 

 por. Such spectra, like those of the metalloids, were 

 separated spectroscopically from those of the metallic 

 elements by their columnar or banded structure. 



4. That there were, in all probability, no com- 

 pounds ordinarily present in the sun's reversing 

 layer. 



5. That when a metallic compound vapor wns dis- 

 sociated by the spark, the band spectrum died out, 

 and the elemental lines came in according to the de- 

 gree of temperature employed. Again, although 

 their knowledge of the spectra of the stars was la- 

 mentably incomplete, he gathered the following facts 

 from the work already accomplished with marvellous 

 skill and industry by Secchi, of Rome: 1. The 

 sun, so far as its spectrum went, might be arranged 

 between stars with much simpler and with much 

 more complex spectra. 2. Sirius, as a type of the for- 

 mer, was the brightest, and therefore, probably, the 

 hottest star in our northern sky ; and was only known 

 to contain hydrogen, sodium, and magnesium ; and 

 the hydrogen lines in this star were enormously dis- 

 tended, showing that the chromosphere was largely 

 composed of that element. There were many other 

 bright stars of this class. 3. As types of the much 

 more complex spectra, the red stars might be quoted, 

 the spectra of which were composed of channeled 

 spaces and bands. Hence these stars were of a lower 

 temperature than our sun, and here the quantity of 

 hydrogen was greatly reduced. He had asked him- 

 self whether these facts could not be grouped together 

 in a working hypothesis, which assumed that in the 

 sun and stars were various degrees of " celestial dis- 

 sociation " at work, which prevented the coming to- 

 gether of the atoms that, at the temperature of the 



