BOUGAINVILLE. 



BOUHOURS, DOMINIQUE. 



The above akstch of the exploits of this distinguished c|.Uiii is 

 necessarily very moomplcte ; bit hutorjr, in truth, form* a very 

 important part in the military history of the half century during 

 which he served, and it* details mutt be sought in the general anuoli 

 of Europe. 



BOUGAINVILLE. Two brothers of this name attained coiistdcrable 

 distinction in the 18th century. 



Jtix PIERRE UK BOI-UAINVILLE, waa born at Parii December lit, 

 1723, and during hit abort career distinguished himself by aome 

 publication* now forgotten ; among them was a French translation of 

 the '. \nti-Lucretiiu' of Cardinal Polignac, and a Parallel between the 

 expedition of Konli Khan and that of Alexander. Some poems, among 

 which is the germ of Pope's ' Universal Prayer, 1 and several papers iu 

 the ' Mi-moires' of the Academy, also were printed by him. He held 

 numerous employment* of high literary distinction, as secretary to the 

 Academy of Inscriptions, otnsor royal, keeper of the antiquities in the 

 Louvre, and secretary in ordinary to the Duke of Orleans, &c. He 

 died at I.ocbes June 22nd, 1703. 



LOUD AMTOIMI DE BOUGAINVILLE, Us younger brother, who more 

 than doubled his years, 1> d also a much more active existence. He 

 was born at Paris November llth, 1729, and studied in the university 

 nf that capital, with the intention of proceeding to the bar. Much of 

 his time had been devoted to mathematics, and instead of commencing 

 as an advocate at the Palais, he surprised his friends by enrolling 

 liiin-rlf in the MouKjuelaires Noirs, and by publishing a treatise on 

 the integral calculus within fifteen days from his enlistment. We 

 know nut in what manner he passed from military to diplomatic pur- 

 suits, but we afterwards find him employed as secretary of embassy 

 in London, when he was elected fellow of the Royal Society. Return- 

 ing to the army, he served in Canada with some distinction till 1759 ; 

 and in 17C3, when the merchants of St. Malo wished to colonise the 

 barren territory of Falkland's Inlands (the Malouines, as they were 

 called, from their pretended discoverer), Bougainville was active in 

 promoting the settlement. The position which he had choi-en for the 

 rttablUhment was at Port Louis, on the eastern ride of the lesser of 

 the two large islands, on a part of the coast which afforded a good 

 harbour; and he was sanguine in his expectations that the new colony 

 viould in a great degree indemnify his country for the loss of the 

 Cansdas. The Pari-ian cabinet however thought otherwise ; and as 

 Spain protected against the Frecch richt of possession, the French 

 KHVI nimcbt in 1766 bartered for the surrender of Port Louis to the 

 Si-aniordx, who gave it the less swelling but perhaps more appropriate 

 usnie of Port Solidad. Bougainville was instructed to execute the 

 transfer, and his commission authorised him afterwards to traverse the 

 Smith Sea between the tropics, for the purpose of making discoveries, 

 and to return home by the East Indies. For this circumnavigation 

 of the globe, a frigate, ' La Roudeuse,' carrying twenty-six twelve 

 pounders, and a store ship, ' L'Etoile,' were placed under his com- 

 mand. His crew consisted of eleven commissioned officers, three 

 volunteers, and 200 mariners; and the Prince of Nassau Sieghen 

 obtained permission to accompany him. His voyage, although not to 

 be compared in point of interest to that of Cook or Anson, is very 

 agreeably related by himself. It was translated into English by 

 Forster in 1772, and an abridgment of it is given in the appendix 

 to the thirteenth volume of Kcrr's ' General Collection of Voyages 

 and Travels.' 



Ifcugainville sailed from Nantes November 15th, 1766. On the 1st 

 of April following he surrendered Falkland's Islands to some Spanish 

 fricaU-s which had been dispatched for the purpose, and he was then 

 delayed till November at Monte Video by the non-arrival and the 

 Decenary r pairs of his store-ship. In working off the shores of 

 Tien* del Fuego he suffered much from boisterous weather. Storms, 

 mists, sunken rocks, difficult currents, and an archipelngo which 

 appropriately received the name of ' The Dangerous,' were encountered 

 before he arrived in sight of Otaheite on April 2nd, 1768; and the 

 well-known blandishmeirU of that island appear to have exposed him 

 to scarcely ISM peril than be had undergone at sea. At parting he 

 carried with him as a volunteer Aotourou, the son of a native chief. 

 The youth's talents appear unhappily to have been very slender, nn.l 

 he acquired little Urn-fit from mixing with the civilised world at 

 Paris: he died on his homeward passage in 1770. Scurvy and a failure 

 nf provisions occasioned very severe suffering during the latter part of 

 this voyage, till on .September 28th Bougainville, having been at sea for 

 ten months snd a hal/, cart anchor off Batavia. On March 1 6th. 1769, 

 he enured St. Malo, having been engaged upon his expedition two 

 yean and four months. Bougainville commanded a ship of war during 

 the American revolutionary contest. He died at the advanced age ol 

 eighty-two yean, on August 31st, 1811. 



BOI-'OUEIt, PIERRE, was born February 16, 1698, at Croisic, in 

 Basse-Bretagne, when his father was professor of hydrography. The 

 son, after receiving the instruction* of his father in mathematics, and 

 making considerable progress by him.elf, taught first at Croisic, and 

 afterwards at Havre de-Grace. In 1727 he gained the prise of the 

 Academy of Sciences for a memoir on the method of masting ships ; 

 in 1729, for one on the method of observing the stun at sea and on 

 astronomical refractions, bis formula and results being the same as 

 those afterwards given by Simpson, but more complicated in form ; 

 In 1.31, for a method of observing the dip of the compass at sea. In 



1 732 he presented a memoir on the inclinations of the planets' orbits, 

 in which he treats the subject on the theory of Dea Cartes : he was 

 the last of the academicians who held by that system. In 1729 he 

 published a memoir on the gradual extinction of light in passing 

 through successive imperfectly transparent substances. By a series) 

 of experiments, of which M. Biot ypu.dls in high term* (' Biog. Univ.'), 

 tie imagined be bad proved that the light from the edges of the 

 gun is weaker than that from the centre. M. Arago has disproved 

 this assertion by new experiments. 



The reputation of Bouguer being established as a profound mathe- 

 matician, niHl particularly (to uso a phrase of M. Condorcet when 

 speaking of him in his lloge of La Condamine) as " possessing that 

 sort of talent which is able to distinguish the little causes of error, 

 and to find the means of remedying them," he was chosen, in company 

 with La Coudainine and others, together with two Spanish com- 

 missioners, to proceed to Peru, for the purpose of measuring a degree 

 of the meridian. Thither he accoidingly departed in May 1735, and 

 remained till 1743. The most essential parts of the operation neces- 

 sarily fell upon him, as La Condamine was comparatively new to the 

 subject. This important operation, which is one of the best of its 

 kind, was carried on under difficulties as great as were ever encountered 

 by any scientific expedition. The inhabitants of the country were 

 jealous of the French commissioners, and supposed them either to be 

 heretics or sorcerers, or to have come iu search of new gold mint a. 

 Even persons attached to the administration employed themselves in 

 stirring up the minds of the people, and when at lost they had pro- 

 cured the assassination of the surgeon of the expedition, one was able 

 to escape the consequences by procuring a verdict of lunacy against 

 himself, and another by taking orders. The country itself was difficult 

 and dangerous : and this obstacle was increased by jealousies which 

 arose between the French and Spanish commissioners, as well as 

 between Bouguer and La Condamine, Bouguer, who felt that he 

 was the main resource of the expedition, suspected that La Conda- 

 mine would appropriate an undue share of the merit to him-elf. The 

 consequence was however of no harm to the real objects of the expe- 

 dition, but perhaps rather the contrary ; for it caused Bouguer, La 

 Condamine, and the Spaniards George Juan and Antonio de Ulloa to 

 conduct their operations separately, while the near accordance of the 

 three in their results was a favourable presumption for their accuracy. 

 The results did not differ from their average by a five-thousandth 

 part of the whole, in a length of a degree of the meridian. 



The leisure which impediments occasionally gave enabled Rougner 

 to apply himself to the determination of points not immediately con- 

 nected with the main object. Among other things, he ascertained the 

 amount of refraction at considerable heights above the sea. He found 

 reason to suspect the effect of the attraction of Cbimboraco upon the 

 plumb-line, but not knowing the mean density of the mountain, could 

 not perform the task which Maskelyne afterwards undertook. A part 

 of the observations (on the obliquity of the ecliptic) were forwarded 

 as soon as made to Hal ley, who published them in 1739 in England: 

 but an account of tho whole was published in Paris, in 1740, under 

 the title of ' Figure de la Terre,' &c. In 1752 followed a justificatory 

 tract on several disputed points; in 1753 a treatise on navigation, 

 abridged in octavo by Lacaille in 17C9, and reprinted iu 1781 and in 

 1792, with notes by Lalande. In 1754 Ronguer published an attack 

 on La Condamine, relative to the part of the great survey claimed by 

 both. The latter replied with temper; and as his tract was the moru 

 amusing of the two (an observation both of Condorcet and Biot), ho 

 carried the public with him. It seems to be admitted on all sides, 

 that Bouguer had no ground of offence whatsoever, and that La 

 Condaoiiue behaved towards him with great respect and moderation. 



Bouguer was afterwards employed to verify the degree measured 

 by Dominic Cassiui between Paris and Amiens. This he did in con- 

 junction with CsKsini de Thury, Camus, and Pingrtf. The result) 

 were published in 1757. He died August 15, 1758, while preparing a 

 new edition of his work on the gradual extinction of light, which was 

 afterwards completed aud published by Ijicaille in 17<'.n. In this work 

 he mentions mi invention of his in 1748, which he cnlU the li. liu 

 meter, and which is in fact the first double object-glass micrometer, 

 and was properly PO called. That of Dolloml, which is the more 

 easily used, and is esteemed the better instrument, was invent .1 

 independently a few years afterwards. Bouguer attacks the Royal 

 Society of London, which a second time had had recourse to the pro- 

 ceeding mentioned in the life of AUZOUT, and had published (but not 

 till after Bouguer's discovery had been made known) the prior 

 invention of an Englishman named Savcry. 



As a scientific man, Bouguer must stand in the first rank of utility. 

 The operations in Peru are among the first of their species, and tho 

 species one of the most difficult kind of scientific investigations. 



BOUHOURS, DOMINIQUE, was born at Paris in 1623. Ho 

 studied at the college of Clermont, professed with the Jesuits at six- 

 teen years of age, and was appointed by that society to read lectures 

 in the belles-lettres and rhetoric, both at Tours and at Paris. A heavy 

 infirmity soon disqualified him for the task, and he wa compelled by 

 the recurrence of grievous headaches to embrace an occupation appa- 

 rently just as ill-adapted as that which he quitted to relieve his peculiar 

 complaint. He entered upon the tuition of the sons of Henry, due de 

 Longucville. 'i'hnt nobleman, who regarded him with singular afire- 



