XXIV 



great experimental inquirer of our century. It was Dumas who, on 

 June 17, 1869, opened this cycle of commemoration addresses by 

 delivering a most eloquent lecture in the theatre of the Royal Institu- 

 tion, where the voice of Faraday himself had been so often heard. 



Essentially different from these commemoration addresses, but not 

 less masterly of their kind, are the numerous orations he delivered 

 sometimes in the name of the Academy, sometimes in his capacity 

 as Vice- President of the Educational Council at the funeral obse- 

 quies of distinguished men, amongst which those on Elie de Beaumont 

 (1874), on Le Verrier (1877), and on Claude Bernard (1878), may be 

 specially mentioned. 



But there were other duties than the delivery of commemoration 

 addresses in store for the academician. Any task imposed upon the 

 Institute in the accomplishment of which chemistry was directly or 

 indirectly concerned, invariably devolved upon Dumas. 



The " Comptes Rendus " of the last fifty years contain an endless 

 series of reports addressed to the Academy, which, on a great variety 

 of subjects, either alone or in conjunction with some of his colleagues, 

 he drew up. Were we to attempt to do full justice to this part of 

 Dumas' work, we should have to ask the reader to accompany us into 

 the most different departments of inquiry. 



Some of these reports are elaborate essays, the interest in which 

 will not die with the ephemeral conditions of their origin. Among 

 them, those on Nicolas Leblanc and the early history of the soda- 

 process, on the diseases of the silkworm, on the devastations of the 

 phylloxera, may be quoted as illustrations. 



We have still to allude to some literary achievements of another 

 character. It has been already stated that in 1824 Dumas founded, 

 in conjunction with his friends Audouin and Adolphe Brongniart, the 

 " Annales des Sciences Natnrelles." At a later period, in 1840, he 

 became one of the editors of the " Annales de Chimie et de Physique," 

 an office which he held up to his death. He has thus been an editor 

 of that journal for upwards of forty years, but his contributions to it 

 extend over more than half a century. 



The lectures at the Athenseum, together with the literary engage- 

 ments which they had occasioned, his duties as Repetiteur at the 

 Ecole Polytechniqne, and the experimental researches continued with- 

 out interruption, would have left but little leisure to any man of 

 ordinary energy. Dumas, however, found time for additional work. 

 Well aware of the imperfection of scientific instruction for technical 

 purposes in the then existing institutions of France, he conceived 

 the idea of establishing, in conjunction with his friends Theodore 

 Olivier and Eugene Peclet, a school intended to supply the defect. 

 The new school, which assumed the title of " Ecole Centrale des Arts 

 et Manufactures," was opened in 1829. 



