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- 

 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 

 Carthusians, whose convent was situated at the foot of 



