

BOR 



720 



BOR 



Borila. squadron in the middle of eight English ships of war. 

 V He tried, in vain, to extricate himself from a force so 

 superior to his own; and when he found that escape 

 was impossible, he refused to surrender till his own 

 ship became a complete wreck. Borda was treated 

 with great kindness and distinction by the English, 

 who sent him back to France upon his parole ; but 

 the chagrin which he felt for the loss of his squadron, 

 and the fatigues of three naval campaigns, having be- 

 gun to produce a serious effect on his health, he de- 

 termined to spend the remainder of his days in the 

 quiet prosecution of science and philosophy. 



During his voyage along with Pingre in 1771. Bor- 

 da found, from experience, that the valuable quadrant 

 invented by our countryman Hadley, was susceptible 

 of great improvement. The celebrated Tobias Mayer 

 had already endeavoured to remove its imperfections. 

 He made the instrument a complete circle, and re- 

 peated the measure of the angle on different parts of 

 its graduated circumference. By taking a mean of 

 these measures, he obtained a result independent of 

 the various sources of error to which Hadley's qua- 

 drant was liable. M. Lefevrc Ginean, the biogra- 

 pher of Borda, declares that the idea of Mayer was 

 i ever carried into effect, and thus endeavours to 

 ascribe the whole merit of the invention to his own 

 countryman. This statement, however, is complete- 

 ly false; one of Mayer's circles was made for A d- 



il Campbell by Bird 1 ; and Mayer had himself 

 aned an instrument for measuring terrestrial angles 

 -upon the repeating principle, which is described in 

 the Commentaries of the Royal Society of Gott in gen, 

 for 1752, torn. ii. p. 325. 



Borda having examined, with the utmost attention, 

 the construction proposed by Mayer, soon perceived 

 its defects, which he has pointed out in his De- 



ifttifm et usage du Circle de Reflexion, published 

 in 1787. These defects he had, in a great measure, 

 removed, in a new circle of his own invention, which 

 was first made in 1777; and which has since been em- 

 ployed with great success, under the name of the Circle 

 of Borda. This instrument, however, excellent as it 

 was, had still numerous imperfections; and it was re- 

 served to our ingenious countryman, Mr Troughton, 

 to bring to perfection one of the happiest inventions 

 that was ever made. See Astronomy, p. 722. and 



ClI'.CI.E. 



When the French government had resolved to re- 

 form their weights and measures, Borda was appointed 

 by the Academy one of the commissaries for fixing 

 the basis of the new system. With this view he in- 

 vented a most simple and ingenious method of mea- 

 suring, with extreme accuracy, the length of the 

 pendulum ; he gave a new form to the rods which 

 were employed tor measuring a base in trigonometri- 

 cal surveys ; he employed a most ingenious method 

 of measuring the changes which they suffered from 

 a difference of temperature ; and he ascertained the 

 increments in length and bulk which platina, iron, 

 and brass sustained when the temperature was raised 

 from 1 to 180 of Fahrenheit. Borda was delight- 

 ed with this national work, and exerted himself with 

 the utmost zeal to bring it to a close. The parsi- 

 mony of the French government, however, interrupt- 

 ed his progress, and he was often obliged to advance 



money to the different artists who were employed in BorJenv, 

 this great undertaking, but who had sought in vain ' y - w 

 for payment from the public treasury. The experi- 

 ments were at length completed. The conferences 

 with the foreign commissaries were opened, and no- 

 thing remained but to enjoy the praise which had 

 been so laboriously earned. Borda, however, was 

 not destined to receive, during his life, that high re- 

 ward at which genius aspires. The severity of the 

 winter enfeebled his constitution, and brought on a 

 dropsy in the breast, of which he expired on the 20th 

 of February 1799, in the 64th year of his age. 



Though Borda devoted his chief attention to the 

 physical sciences and the useful am, he had a great 

 predilection for poetry and belles lettres ; and the 

 Odyssey of Homer was his favourite work. The re- 

 spect which Borda's talents always inspired, was 

 supported by the excellence of his private character. 

 His conversation was agreeable and instructive, and 

 was animated by a vivacity of temper which render- 

 ed him a pleasant member of society. Borda was, 

 in 1797, one of the candidates for the office of a di- 

 rector of the French republic; but he did not possess 

 those talents for intrigue, which would have ensured 

 success in such a struggle. 



Besides the works which we have already men- 

 tioned, Borda drew up, in conjunction with M. De- 

 lambre, the Tables trigonometriaues Decimates, which 

 was publislied at Paris in 1801. 



The account of his voyage to the Canary Isles, 

 drawn up by himself, and full of interesting informa- 

 tion, has not yet been published ; but we have reason 

 to believe that this work, along with other manu- 

 scripts and fragments written by Borda, will soon be 

 given to the world, (o) 



BORDENAVE, Tous>aint, a celebrated French 

 physician, wa6 born at Paris on the 10th April 

 1728. The profession of a surgeon having been al- 

 most hereditary in his family, his father was anxious 

 that it should be continued in the person of his son, 

 and gave him a complete education in languages and 

 philosophy, to qualify him for the situation which he 

 might be called to fill. The progress which he 

 made in the Latin language was so great, that he 

 learned to speak it with unusual fluency ; and this 

 circumstance alone gave him great consideration in 

 his own profession, and in the public schools, at a 

 time of life when he could not otherwise have been 

 entitled to receive it. 



Bordenave was extremely desirous to have a seat 

 in the Academy of Sciences ; and, in the year 1774, 

 he was appointed a veteran associate of that learned 

 body. This appointment being in direct hostility 

 to the rules of the academy, gave great dissatisfac- 

 tion ; and though Bordenave himself deprecated this 

 mode of admission, the members of the academy were 

 naturally irritated at such an intrusion. The mild- 

 ness and modesty of Bordenave, however, gained him 

 the friendship of his colleagues, and he enriched the 

 memoirs of the academy with several valuable papers. 



Bordenave was created Echevin of Paris, and he 

 was the first person who had been elevated to this 

 office. On the birth of an heir to the throne, he was 

 rewarded with the ribbon of the order of tSt Michael ; 

 but he did not long enjoy this honour. He was 

 6 



