18 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF FRANCIS ARAGO. 



yond the seas, and thus relieved me from the most serious 

 anxiety which I have experienced in all my life. 



Brissot died after having covered the walls of Paris 

 with printed handbills in favour of the Bourbon restora- 

 tion. 



I had scarcely entered the Observatory, when I be- 

 came the fellow-labourer of Biot in researches on the 

 refraction of gases, already commenced by Borda. 



While engaged in this work the celebrated academi- 



C C3 



cian and I often conversed on the interest there would be 

 in resuming in Spain the measurement interrupted by the 

 death of Mechain. We submitted our project to Laplace,* 

 who received it with ardour, procured the necessary 

 funds, and the Government confided to us two this im- 

 portant mission. 



M. Biot, I, and the Spanish commissary Rodriguez 

 departed from Paris in the commencement of 1806. 

 We visited, on our way, the stations indicated by Me- 

 chain ; we made some important modifications in the pro- 

 jected triangulation, and at once commenced operations. 



An inaccurate direction given to the reflectors estab- 

 lished at Iviza, on the mountain Campvey, rendered the 

 observations made on the continent extremely difficult. 

 The light of the signal of Campvey was very rarely 

 seen, and I was, during six months, in the Desierto de 

 las Palmas, without being able to see it, whilst at a later 

 period the light established at the Desierto, but well di- 

 rected, was seen every evening from Campvey. It will 

 easily be imagined what must be the ennui experienced 

 by a young and active astronomer, confined to an elevated 

 peak, having for his walk only a space of twenty square 

 metres, and for diversion only the conversation of two 

 Carthusians, whose convent was situated at the foot of 



