xl 



the answer. The amusement which this excited led Laplace to tell 

 the story to the First Consul, among whose few objects of reverence 

 the mathematics stood very high. Roederer accordingly had to 

 encounter one of those bourrasques by which Napoleon is so well 

 known. "You are a pretty ignoramus not to know that mathe- 

 matics is the root of human knowledge. The young man served 

 you right when he turned you into ridicule ; and you could not 

 even see what he was at." 



If such anecdotes appear to be unusual in our notices, it may be 

 remembered that these accompaniments would, in most cases, be of 

 too recent a character. We insert nothing but what is more than 

 half a century old, and we proceed to a few words on Biot's scientific 

 life. 



Over and above separate works, fifteen in number, the scientific 

 life of Biot is recorded in 60 articles of the Journal Philomathique, 

 119 of the Comptes Rendus, 3 of the Journal of the Polytechnic 

 School, 8 of the Connaissance des Terns, 41 of the Annales de 

 Chimie, &c., 22 of the Memoirs of the Academy, 1 of the Savans 

 Etrangers, 83 of the Journal des Savans ; and of accounts and cri- 

 ticisms, 37 in the Moniteur Universel, 35 in the^Mercure de France, 

 1 in the Journal des Debats, 5 in the Journal des Mines, with 

 23 articles in the Biographic Universelle, 9 in the Memoires, &c. 

 d'Arcueil, 1 in the Academy of Inscriptions, 2 in the Revue 

 Britannique, 6 in the Revue ou de'cade Philosophique, &c., and 8 in 

 the Nouvelles Annales du Muse'um d'Histoire Naturelle. In this 

 large mass of results the author appears as an observer and experi- 

 menter, as a critic and historian, and as a teacher and elementary 

 writer. 



As an astronomical and geodetical observer, Biot has long had his 

 place in history ; to discuss that place would require the discussion 

 of critics, historians, and subsequent observers. As an experimenter, 

 we cannot undertake to describe that long train of which Professor 

 Forbes, in his elaborate sixth dissertation of the * Encyclopaedia 

 Britannica/ says " the number and variety of his experiments and 

 writings almost baffles enumeration." There is no part of physics 

 into which he did not carry his researches ; but of all he was most 

 devoted to optics. Here the point which has been most signalized 

 by historical writers is the effect of the rotatory action of fluids, to 



