54 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL 



[J^Eii.'ll-'ARir, 



coins, on the ancient coins of Surat, and on tliose of the Hindoo princes of 

 Lahore and tlieir Mahomcdrn successors, and formed alphabets of them, by 

 which llicy can now be readily perused, lie traced the varieties of the De- 

 vanagari alpliabet of Sanscrit on the temples and columns of Upper India to 

 a date antcrior^o the third century before Christ, and was enabled to read 

 OD the rocks of Cuttock and Gujarct the names of Antiochus and Ptolemy, 

 and the record of the intercourse of an Indian monarch with the neighbour- 

 ing princes of Persia and Egypt : he ascertained that, at the period of Alex- 

 ander's conquests, India was under the sway of Uoudliist sovereigns and Boud- 

 lust institutions, and that the earliest monarchs of India are not associated 

 with a IJrahminical creed or dynasty. These discoveries, which throw a 

 perfectly new and unexpected light upon Indian history and chronology, and 

 which furnish, in fact, a satisfactory outline of the history of India, from the 

 invasion of Alexander to that of Mohammed Chori, a period of fifteen cen- 

 tnries, are only second in interest and importance, and we may add likewise 

 in difficulty, to those of Chanipollion with respect to the succession of 

 dynasties in ancient Egypt. These severe and incessant labours, in the ener- 

 vating climate of India, though borne for many years witli little apparent 

 inconvenience or effect, finally undermined his constitution ; and he was at 

 last compelled to relinquish all his occupations, and to seek for the resto- 

 ration of his health in rest and a change of scene, lie arrived in England 

 on the 9th of January last ; but the jiDwers both of his body and his mind 

 seem to have been altogether worn out and exhausted ; and after lingering 

 for a few months, he died on the 2Jid of .\pril last, in the 41st year of his 

 age. The cause of literature and archaeology in the East could not have 

 sustained a severer loss. 



Simon Denis Poisson, one of the most illustrious men of science that 

 Europe has produced, was born at Pithiviers on the 21st of June, 1781, of 

 very humble parentage, and was placed, at the age of fourteen, under the 

 • care of his uncle, M. L'Enfant, surgeon, at Fontainebleau, %vith a view to the 

 study of his profession. It was at the central school of this place that he 

 was introduced to the notice of M. Billy, a mathematician of some eminence, 

 who speedily discovered and fostered his extraordinay capacity for mathe- 

 matical studies. In 1793 he was elected a pupil of the Ecole Polyteehnique, 

 which was then at the summit of its reputation, counting amongst its pro- 

 fessors Laplace, Lagrange, Fourier, Monge, Prony, BerthoUet, Foureroy, Vau- 

 quelin, Guyton Morveau, and Chaptal. The progress which he made at this 

 celebrated school surpassed the most sanguine expectations of his kind patron, 

 M. BUly, and secured him the steady friendship and support of the most 

 distinguished of his teachers. In the year 1800, he presented to the Insti- 

 tute a memoir, " Sur le norabre d'integrales completes dont les equations 

 aux differences finies sont susceptibles," which cleared up a vcrj' difficult and 

 obscure |)oint of analysis. It was printed, on the reconmiendation of La- 

 place and Lagrange, in the Metnoires des Safaris EtranrjerSj an unexampled 

 honour to be conferred on so young a man. Stimulated by its first success, 

 we find him presenting a succession of memoirs to the Institute on the most 

 important points of analysis, and rapidly assuming the rank of one of the 

 first geometers of his age. lie was successively made Repetiteur ann then 

 Professor of the Polytechnic School, Professor at the College de France and 

 the Faculte des Sciences, Member of the Bm-ean des Longitudes, and finally, 

 in 1812, Member of the Institute. His celebrated memoir on the invari- 

 ability of the major axes of the planetary orbits, which received the emjihatic 

 approbation of Laplace, and secured him, throughout his life, the zealous 

 patronage of that great philosopher, was presented to the Institute iu the 

 year 1808. Laplace had shown that the periodicity of the changes of the 

 other elements, such as the eccentricity and inclination, depends on the 

 periodicy of the changes of the major axis — a condition, therefore, which 

 constitutes the true basis of the proof of the stability and permanence of the 

 system of the universe. Lagrange had considered this great problem in the 

 Berlin Memoirs for 1776, and had shown that, by neglecting certain quan- 

 tities which might possibly modify the result, the expression for the major 

 axis involved periodical inequalities only, and that they were consequently 

 incapable of indefinite increase or diminution. It was reserved to Poisson to 

 demonstrate a priori that the non-periodic terms of the order which he con- 

 sidered would mutually destroy each other — a most important conclusion, 

 which removed the ]uincipal objection that existed to the validity of the 

 demonstration of Lagrange. This brilliant success of Poisson in one of the 

 most difficult problems of physical astronomy, would a|ipear to have influ- 

 enced him ill devoting himself thenceforward almost exclusively to the appli- 

 cation of mathematics to physical science ; and the vast number of memoirs 

 and works (amounting to more than 300 in number) which he published 

 during the last thirty years of his Ufe, made this department of mathematical 

 science, and more particularly whatever related to the action of molecular 

 forces, pre-eminently his own. They comprehend the theon' of waves and 

 of the vibrations of elastic substances, the laws of the distribution of elec- 

 tricity and magnetism, the prcpagation of heat, the theory of caiiillary attrac- 

 tion, the attraction of spheroids, the local magnetic attraction of ships, im- 

 portant problems on chance, and a multitude of other subjects. His well- 

 known treatise on mechanics is incomiiarably superior to every similar pub- 

 lication in the clear and decided exposition of principles and methods, and 

 in the happy and luminous combination of the most general theories with 

 their particular and most instructive applications. Poisson was not a phi- 

 losopher who courted tee credit of propounding original views which did not 

 arise naturally out of the imincdiale subjects of bis researches ; and he was 

 moie disposed to extend and perfect the application of known methods of 



analysis to impoi'tant phy^i'-al priiblems, than to inJuk';; in siiocula;ious oa 

 the invention or transformation of formula, which, however new and elegant, 

 appeared to give him no obvious increase of mathematical power in the pro- 

 secution of his inquiries. His delight was to grapjile with difficulties which 

 had embarrassed the greatest of his predecessors, and to bring to bear upon 

 them those vast resources of analysis, and those clear views of mechanical 

 and physical ))rinciples in their most refined and difficult applications, which 

 have secured him the most brilliant triumjihs in uerrly every department of 

 I)hysical science. The confidence which he was accustomed to feel in the 

 results of his analysis— the natural result of his own clear perception of the 

 necessary dependence of the several steps by which they were deduced — led 

 him sometimes to accept conclusions of a somewhat startling character: such 

 were his views of the constitution and finite extent of the earth's atmos- 

 phere, which some distinguished philosophers have ventured to defend. It 

 is not in mathematical reasonings only that we are sometimes disposed to 

 forget that the conclusions which we make general are not dependent upon 

 our assumed premises alone, but are modified by concurrent or collateral 

 causes, which neither our analysis nor our reasonings are competenr to com- 

 prehend. The habits of life of this great mathematician were of the most 

 simple and laborious kind ; though he never missed a meeting of the Institute, 

 or a lecture, or an examination, or any other public engagement, yet on all 

 other occasions, at least ih his later years, he denied access to all visitors, 

 and remained in his study from an early hour in the morning until sit 

 o'clock at night, when he joined his family at dinner, and spent the evening 

 in social converse, or in amusements of the lightest and least absorbing 

 character, carefuUy avoiding every topic which might recall the severity of 

 his morning occupations. The wear and tear, however, of a life devoted to 

 such constant study, and the total neglect of exercise and healthy recreations, 

 finally undermined his naturally vigorous constitution, and in the autumn of 

 1838 the alarming discovery was made that he was labouring under the fatal 

 disease of water in the chest. The efforts of his physicians contributed for 

 a long time to mitigate the more serious symptoms of his malady ; but every 

 relaxation of his sufferings led to the resumption of his labours ; and to the 

 earnest remonstrances of his friends, and the entreaties of his family, he was 

 accustomed to reply, that to him ia vie cetait le travail ; nay, he even un- 

 dertook to conduct the usual examinations of the Ecole Polyteehnique, which 

 occupied him for nearly ten hours a day for the greatest part of a month. 

 This last imprudent effort ended in an attack of paralysis, attended by loss 

 of memory and the rapid obscuration of all his faculties ; he continued to 

 struggle, amidst alternations of hope and despondency, for a considerable 

 period, and died on the 2otli of April last, in the 59th year of his age. 

 Poisson was eminently a deductive philosopher, and one of the most illus- 

 trious of his class ; his profound knowledge of the labours of his predecessors, 

 his perfect command of analysis, and his extraordinary sagacity and tact in 

 applying it, his clearness and precision in the enunciation of his problems, 

 and the general elegance of form which pervaded his investigations, must 

 long continue to give to his works that classical character, which has 

 hitherto been almost exclusively appropriated to the productions of Lagrange, 

 Laplace, and Euler. If he was inferior to Fourier or to Fresnel in the large- 

 ness and jiregnancy of his philosophical views, he was incomparably superior 

 to them in mathematical power : if some of his contemporaries rivalled or 

 surpassed him in particular departments of his own favourite studies, he has 

 left no one to equal him, either in France or in Europe at large, iu the extent, 

 variety, and intrinsic value of his labours. The last work on which he was 

 engaged was a treatise on the theory of light, with particular reference to 

 the recent researches of Cauehy ; nearly two hundred pages of this work are 

 printed, which are altogether confined to generalities, whose applications 

 were destined to form the subject of a second and coucludiug section : those 

 who are acquainted with the other works of Poisson will be best able to ap- 

 preciate the irreparable loss wiiieh optical science has sustained in the non- 

 completion of such a work from the hands of such a master. . 



DEVELOPMENT OF ELECTRICITY FROM HIGH PRESSURE 

 STEA.M. 



On Saturday, the 19th December, Mr. Condie. manager of Blair Iron 

 Works, AjTshire, performed this new and interesting phenomenon at the 



above works, in the presenci' of Ludovic Houston, Esq., of Johnstone ; 



Cunningham, Esq., of Carnhrae Iron Works ; Thonjas W'ingate, Esq., engi- 

 neer ; Springfield, and a number of others, who-were all highly satisfied with 

 the accuracy of the accounts given by the public press of similar experiments 

 having been made in the neighbourhood of Newcastle, ujion locomotive en- 

 gine boilers. The experiment made by Mr. Condie was upon the steam issu- 

 ing from the safety valve of two of the liigh pressme boilers of the blowing 

 engine, and was simply performed as follows : — 



The experimenter jilaccd himself upon an insulated stool (a board resting 

 upon three quart bottles in absence of better,) and having in ou& hand a long 

 small rod of iron, with four sharjiened jioints, similar to a hghtning conduc- 

 tor ; this he held in the steam issuing from the safety valve. When the 

 points were held about one foot from the valve, electric s))arks were drawn 

 by the liysfandcrs' knuckles from those of the experimenter about half an 

 inch long; but as the pointed rod was raised to about six or eight feet above 

 the valve into the cloud of steam, vivid and pungent sparks .we«; then drawn 

 from one and a half inches long, which, in fact, were nearly as stunning upon 



