May 5, 1921] 



NATURE 



303 



illustrate this point. To them might be added 

 his admiration for Jenner. It was Napoleon who 

 placed a memorial in one of the wards of the 

 Hotel-Dieu to the memory of Dessault and 

 Bichat. 



Industrial progress and efficiency no less than 

 scientific discovery appealed to Napoleon. 

 Jacquard's loom of 1801 at first brought little but 

 opposition and trouble to the inventor, the Indus- 

 trial Council of Lyons even passing a formal con- 

 demnation of the loom. His ingenuity being re- 

 marked by Carnot and then by Napoleon, Jac- 

 quard was for a time employed in the Conserva- 

 toire des Arts et Metiers, and by a decree dated 

 at Berlin, October 27, 1806., Napoleon gave him 

 a pension of 6000 francs and a premium of 

 50 francs for each loom erected. In 1810 the 

 Emperor offered a reward of a million francs to 

 the inventor who should first bring into success- 

 ful operation a method of spinning flax by 

 machinery. The problem was solved by the dis- 

 tinguished mechanician and practical chemist 

 Philippe de Girard, to whom France was indebted 

 for successful work in various directions. Girard, 

 however, died in 1845 without receiving the 

 reward, though his descendants were recom- 

 pensed. 



The great public works initiated bv Napoleon 

 were as remarkable as his educational schemes. For 

 the improvement of harbours and rivers, and for 

 the construction of bridges, canals, and roads, he 

 found in the Corps des Fonts et Chaussees, estab- 

 lished in 1747, a body of technically trained public 

 servants such as no other country in the world 

 then possessed. The canals connected with the 

 Rhine and Rhone, the Saone, the Seine, the 

 Ourcq, and the Oise ; the works at Dunkirk, 

 Havre, Dieppe, Honfleur, and Brest ; and the 

 breakwater at Cherbourg, were all carried out 

 by this famous corps, the records of which 

 are enriched with the names of Perronet, Girard, 

 Gauthey, Navier, and Prony. At Malmaison one 

 day Napoleon said to Chaptal : " I intend to make 

 Paris the most beautiful capital in the world. 

 . . . What are your plans for giving water to 

 Paris? " Chaptal gave the alternatives — artesian 

 wells or bringing the water from the River 

 Ourcq. " I adopt the latter plan ; go home and 

 order five hundred men to set to work to-morrow 

 at La Villette to dig the canal." "Such," says 

 Dr. Holland Rose, "was the inception of a great 

 public work which cost more than half a million 

 sterling." 



The many men of science upon whom Napoleon 



bestowed honours were scarcely more numerous 

 than those he employed in positions of trust. The 

 story of Laplace as Minister of the Interior is well 

 known. Given the post at his own request, six 

 weeks later he was removed because he carried 

 into the art of government the principles of the 

 infinitesimal calculus. Sixteen years before this 

 Laplace had been young Bonaparte's examiner at 

 his entrance into the army. Guyton de Morveau, 

 Cuvier, Fourcroy, Chaptal, and LacepMe were 

 among those who held public offices. LacepWe 

 was for some time President of the Senate. With 

 Laplace he was not unlike the Vicar of Bray, and 

 found no difficulty in agreeing with any Govern- 

 ment — revolutionary, republican, monarchical, or 

 imperial. It may be it was of him Napoleon was 

 thinking when one day he bitterly remarked : 

 " Men deserve the contempt with which they in- 

 spire me. I have only to put some gold lace on 

 the coat of my virtuous republicans and they 

 immediately become just what I wish them." 



Of a different stamp were Cuvier and Chaptal. 

 Cuvier, whose reputation as a naturalist and 

 organising ability as secretary to the In- 

 stitute could not fail to attract Napoleon's atten- 

 tion, was appointed one of the six inspectors to 

 establish lycees in the principal towns. He 

 afterwards did valuable work in the reorgan- 

 isation of some of the European universities. 

 Among all the public men Napoleon drew from 

 the world of science, however, none stood higher 

 in general esteem than Chaptal. Released from 

 pri'son during the Revolution to superintend the 

 manufacture of gunpowder, the rise of Napoleon 

 opened for him a career of great public useful- 

 ness. Succeeding Lucien Bonaparte as Minister 

 of the Interior, he founded trade schools, en- 

 couraged arts and manufactures, and assisted the 

 Chambers of Commerce. Though his loyalty to 

 Napoleon led to his being deprived of his peerage 

 at the Restoration, he continued to devote his 

 vast knowledge and great talents to the service 

 of France, showing always that consistency, 

 moderation, and desire for the common good for 

 which he had been conspicuous under the regime 

 of Napoleon. 



"The true conquests, the only conquests which 

 cost no regrets, are those achieved over ignor- 

 ance," Napoleon once said. Such are the con- 

 quests of science, and no results of Napoleon's 

 life's work are more enduring or beneficent than 

 those due to his encouragement of scientific 

 education and scientific discovery and to his pro- 

 motion of great public works. 



The Annular Eclipse of April 8, 

 By Major W. J. S. Lockver. 



THE best positions to observe the annular 

 eclipse of the sun on April 8 were to the 

 extreme north-west of Scotland, and it was the 

 intention of Lt.-Col. F. K. McClean and myself 

 to take up a station somewhere in that part. 

 Owing to the miners' stoppage Col. McClean was 

 NO. 2688, VOL. 107] 



unable to take the journey, but in London I suc- 

 ceeded in finding two volunteers in Mr. 

 Patrick Alexander and Mr. Allan Young, and 

 we started off for Durness (Sutherland), near the 

 entrance to Loch Eriboll, on the evening of 

 April 5. Reaching Lairg the following afternoon, 



