134 



NA TURE 



\yune 9, 18S7 



Prof. J. C. Adams, F.R.S., ex-President of the Astronomical 



Society. 

 Prof. W. G. Adams, F.R. S., ex-President of the Physical 



Society. 

 Sir Gkorge B. Airy, K.C. B., F.R.S., ex- Astronomer- Royal, 



and ex-President of the Royal Society. 

 Sir W. Bowman, Bart., F.R.S., formeily Secretary to the 



Royal Institution. 

 Sir F. Bramweix, F.R.S., Secretary to the Royal Institution, 



and ex-President of the Institution of Civil Engineers. 

 Prof. Cayley, F.R.S., ex-President of the British Association. 

 Prof. Clifton, F. R. S., ex-President of the Physical So iety. 

 W. Crookes, Esq , F. R. S., President of the Chemical Society. 

 W. H. M. Christie, Esq., F. R.S., Astronomer-Royal. 

 Warren De la Rue, Esq., F.R. S., ex- President of the Royal 



Astronomical and Chemical Societies. 

 Prof. Dewar, F. R. S., Professor of Chemistry in the Royal 



Institution. 

 Colonel Donnelly, C.B. , Secretary to the Science and Art 



Department. 

 Prof. P. M. Duncan, F.R.S., ex- President of the Geological 



Society. 

 W. T. 1 hiselton Dyer, Esq., F.R.S , Director of the Royal 



Gardens, Kew. 

 Dr. Evans, Treasurer of the Royal Society, and President of 



the Society of Antiquaries. 

 Prof. Flower, F.R. S., Director of ihe Natural History Depart- 

 ment, British Museum. 

 Prof. G. Carey Foster, F.R.S., ex- President of the Physical 



Society. 

 Prof. M. Foster, Secretary of the Royal Society. 

 F. Galton, Esq., F.R. S., President of the Anthropological 



Society. 

 Prof Gamgee, F.R. S. , Professor of Physiology in the Royal 



Institution. 

 A. Geikie, Esq., F.R.S. , Director-General of the Geological 



Survey, 

 Sir W. Grove, F.R.S., ex-Pre ident of the British Association. 

 Dr. Hirst, F.R.S., ex- President of the Mathematical Society. 

 Sir J. Hooker, F.R.S., ex- President of the Royal Society. 

 Prof. Huxley, F.R.S., ex- President of the Royal Society. 

 Prof. JuDD, F.R.S., President of the Geological Society. 

 Sir John Lubbock, F.R.S., ex-President of the British 



Association. 

 Hugo Muller, Esq., F.R.S , ex-President of the Chemical 



Society. 

 Prof. Odling, F.R.S., ex-President of the Chemical Society. 

 Sir Lyon Playfair, K.C.B., F.R.S., ex-President of the 



British Association. 

 Lord Rayleigh, Secretary of the Royal Society. 

 Admiral Sir G. IL Richards, K.C B., F.R.S., ex-Hydro- 



grapher to the Navy. 

 Sir H. E. Roscoe, F.R.S., ex-President of the Chemical 



Society, and President- Elect of the British Association. 

 Prof. Balfour Stewart, F.R.S., President of the Physical 



Society. 

 G<;neral R. Strachey, F.R.S., President of the Royal Geo- 

 graphical Society. 

 Sir VV. Thomson, F.R.S., President of the Royal Society of 



Edinburgh. 

 Captain Wharton, R.N., F.R.S., Hydrogcapher to the Navy. 

 Professor A. W. Williamson, Foreign Secretary of the Royal 



Society. 



M. BOUSSINGAULT. 



OTUDENTS of agricultural chemistry have received 

 »*^ with much regret the tidings of the death of M. 

 Boussingault, one of the earliest and most eininent in- 

 vestigators in this branch of science. He was born at 

 Paris on February 2, 1802, and obtained his scientific 

 education at the School of Mines of St. Etienne. When 

 little more than twenty years of age, he went as a mining 

 engineer to Columbia, South America, where he remained 

 ten years. During his residence in South America he 

 made the acquaintance of Alexander von Humboldt, who 

 warmly praised his work in chemistry, meteorology, geo- 

 graphy, and astronomy. On his return to France, M. 



Boussingault was appointed Professor of Chemistry at 

 Lyons. He married the sister of M. Lebel, who Iiad been 

 his fellow student at St. Etienne, and by his marriage he 

 became, with his brother-in-law, joint proprietor of the 

 estate of Bechelbronn, in Alsace. Here he set up the 

 first laboratory that had ever been established on a farm, 

 and carried on a long series of important researches. 



From the time of his marriage, Boussingault generally 

 spent about half the year in Paris, and the other half 

 in Alsace. In 1836, he published a paper on ihe quantity 

 of nitrogen in different foods, and on the equivalents of 

 the foods, founded on the amounts of nitrogen they con- 

 tained. This was his first important contribution to 

 agricultural chemistry. It was soon followed by others, 

 which secured for him, in 1839, the honour of being 

 elected a member of the Institute. Among his publica- 

 tions in 1837 and 1838, were papers on the amount of 

 gluten in different kinds of wheat, on the influence of the 

 clearing of forests on the diminution of the flow of rivers, 

 on the meteorological influences affecting the culture of 

 the vine, and on the principles underlying the value of a 

 rotation of crops. In connexion with this last subject 

 he brought out many new facts, which seem to have been 

 of essential service to Liebig. In 1843, much attention 

 was attracted by a work entitled " Economie Rurale," in 

 which M. Boussingault embodied the results of many of 

 his original investigations. A translation, under the title 

 of "Rural Economy in its Relations with Chemistry, 

 Physics, and Meteorology," was published in this country^ 

 and made the author's name widely known among English 

 agriculturists. In a review of this translation in 1845 the 

 Agricultural Gazeite described the work as " the most 

 important and valuable book for farmers which the 

 chemists of the present century had produced— not so 

 attractive as the clever paragraphs of Prof Liebig, but 

 much more than compensating for want of brilliancy by 

 solid worth." 



In an excellent biographical sketch of Boussingault, 

 printed in the Agricultural Gazette, January 6, 1879, it 

 is pointed out that, although his attention was by no 

 means limited to subjects bearing on agriculture, by far 

 the greater number of his researches had relation to the 

 problems it suggests. " Thus," says the writer, " the 

 amount and condition of the combined nitrogen in the 

 atmosphere, in the aqueous depositions from it, in rivers 

 and springs, and in the soil, have been investigated. 

 The amounts of nitrogen, phosphoric acid, &c., in differ- 

 ent manuring substances have been determined, and 

 their comparative values estimated accordingly. The ques- 

 tion of whether or not plants assimilate the free nitrogen 

 of the air has again and again been taken up, the weight of 

 the evidence always serving to confirm the conclusion 

 that they do not. Very recently, too, he has made 

 experiments in regard to some functions of the leaves of 

 plants. Lastly, in the sphere of animal chemistry, he has 

 from time to time devoted him:elf to the elucidation of 

 important points, such as the sources in the food of the 

 fat of the fattening animal, the assimilation of mineral 

 constituents, the question whether any of the nitrogen of 

 the food or of the animal is exhaled, and so on." Most 

 of the results of his investigations relating to agricultural 

 chemistry are given in his work "Agronomic, Chimie 

 agricole, et Physiologic," published in seven volumes, the 

 first of which appeared in i860, the last in 1884. 



M. Boussingault received many honours from foreign 

 Governments and from scientific Societies both at home 

 and abroad. In 1878, the Council of the Royal Society 

 awarded the Copley Medal for his numerous and varied 

 contributions to science, especially for those connected 

 with agriculture. 



In 1848, Boussingault was elected a member of the 

 National Assembly, where he sat as a Moderate Re- 

 publican, and for a short time he was a member of the 

 Conseil d'Etat. In 1851 he was dismissed, on account of 



