say: If I were to recommence my life, I could not seek 
anything rae : - : 
It is between that departure and this point of arrival 
that the most brilliant ‘phase of your career is placed, 
Your discoveries followed one another like improvisations. 
_ The composition of ethers was unknown, you analysed 
_ them; you enunciated the law of substitutions and of the 
conservation of chemical types ; a constant preoccupation 
brought you frequently to the atomic theory, that 
fundamental base of chemistry ; and you furnished, for 
_ measurement of the density of vapours, a method so 
simple and so perfect that it is easy to the most unskil- 
_ ful; we know what light it has thrown on the study of 
‘organic compounds. But it belongs not to me to speak 
_ of your innumerable researches. The scholar may not 
 arrogate to himself, without irreverence, the right of 
_ praise or of criticism; in presence of the teacher, he has 
only the right of respect. 
But it is permitted him to remember, and who does not 
remember, the charm and the marvels of your teaching 
at the Athénée, at the Ecole Polytechnique, at the Sor- 
bonne, at the Ecole de Médicine, at the Collége de 
France, at the Ecole Centrale? Everywhere that you 
have appeared, and you have appeared everywhere, youth 
and ripe age have been drawn, held, charmed, carried 
away, to such an extent, that it may be said that you have 
even rendered more service by the vocations you have 
decided, than by your own proper works. 
Fifty years ago, this Academy opened her gates to you; 
she has intrusted to you since, and ever congratulates 
herself for it, the formidable heritage of her illustrious 
perpetual secretaries. The French Academy has seated 
_ you in the chair of Guizot, a professor like yourself ; but 
we have not been therefore jealous. They honoured you, 
and we did not lose you. Then comes the moment when 
preoccupations of another order have been imposed by 
your very renown ; you have resigned yourself to those 
duties which enlarged your 7vé/z, because your authority 
was necessary, because science mixes with all, because 
chemistry addresses itself to the lighting, sanitation, 
hygiene, and all the industrial requirements of a large 
city. 
Circumstances have now set you free from manifold 
cares, and restored you to sciences and to letters. These 
possess you wholly ; and whether it be art or industry, 
physics or chemistry, electricity or astronomy, it is to you 
people apply, it is your authority they seek. They find 
you ever ready for work, ever equal to the most difficult 
missions. When one recapitulates the work you have 
accomplished, the services of every kind you have ren- 
dered, the discoveries you have made, the lectures you 
have given in all the chairs, the literary works you have 
written, the ideas you have sown—all this existence, in 
fine, which has never known rest, one is astonished that 
you have not taken more than half a century to fulfil so 
large a programme; and when one has the happiness of 
seeing you and hearing you, one marvels that a half- 
century of labour without truce has still left you so much 
of youth to expend. It is because, of all human passions, 
that of study isthe most healthy, because it leaves to the 
organs all their force, to the mind all its serenity—for 
it is wisdom. 
Enjoy, my dear teacher, enjoy these fruits; all the 
good things that come from God have been given you 
without stint ; genuine happiness, a health which nothing 
has affected, hearty good will towards all, a mental vision 
which has not ceased to grow; and all human recom- 
penses have come to be superadded ; an authority which 
makes itself felt and survives all régimes, a respect which 
disconcerts envy, and the affection of your fellow members 
which has prompted the gift of this medal : it is merely 
a small fragment of gold, but it will be precious to you, 
because it is amalgamated with our gratitude. 
M. Dumas then spoke as follows :— 
Mr. President and my dear Fellow-Members: Since 
my earliest steps in the way of science, the Academy has 
been to me the object of a reverence so profound that I 
cannot receive, without the most lively emotion, the 
inestimable present with which she honours the close of 
my career. 
As far back as sixty years ago she gave a kindly atten- 
tion to the work of my youth; half a century ago she 
received me into her bosom; and since then she has not 
ceased to accord to me marks of her esteem and of her 
confidence; nothing had prepared me, however, to think 
that among my fellow members many should wish even 
now to call themselves my scholars. Of all the testi- 
monies to which an old teacher might lay claim, the 
secret has been found of offering that one which is dearest 
to his heart. Your kindness overwhelms and confounds 
me ! 
Ah, my beloved scholars, I go back often enough to 
these thirty years of an apostolate, which has not been 
sterile, thanks to the talents of disciples like you ; but I 
believed the remembrance of it to be buried in the tomb 
of companions in the fight, whom we have lost, or to have 
passed from the memory of those who survive them. 
These prelections, then, of another time, of a time so happy, 
are still not forgotten, since you have wished to recall, 
in a durable way, on this medal, impressions that are 
ordinarily apt to be soon attenuated or even extinguished. 
You are right! The Professoriate must be honoured, 
because speech is a power; because from the height of 
his public chair the professor fulfils 4 sacred mission. 
His loyal and penetrating conviction warms hearts, and 
raises minds towards the disinterested regions of the 
Ideal. He reflects the present state of science, like a 
faithful mirror, he prepares the discoveries of the future, 
he revives the grand traditions of fa glorious past. Open- 
ing his whole heart and all his thought to his auditors, he 
teaches them to love the truth, to respect genius, to 
cherish the fatherland, and to serve it well. 
Whoever has found himself surrounded by attentive 
youth, taking fire at the accents of the teacher, vibrating to 
his emotions, hastening full of faith towards the conquests 
indicated to its ardour, that man, believe me, has known 
the noblest enjoyments of the human soul. 
But stay, there is a greater joy still; it is that 
experienced in seeing oneself outstripped by those to 
whom one formerly showed the way. This joy you have 
caused me to taste every day. May you, for the honour 
of French science, and for the moral greatness of our 
dear country, you who are of more value than I, have in 
your turn scholars who surpass you in genius, and equal 
you in heart. 
Mr. President, and all of you my dear Fellow-Members, 
receive once more the profound expression of my grateful 
sentiments ; the medal which I receive from your hands 
will be piously preserved by my family as the dearest of 
souvenirs of my existence, and by my descendants as the 
most honourable of titles of nobility. 
THE] METEVROLOGICAL OBSERVATORY ON 
BEN NEVIS 
eae importance of high-level stations in any satisfac- 
tory handling of the scientificand practical problems 
of meteorology which have now come prominently to the 
front, is everywhere recognised, and accordingly in almost 
all civilised countries such stations have been established, 
and their number is steadily increasing. On the conti- 
nent of Europe, many of the more salient positions avail- 
able for high-level stations are already occupied in 
France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, 
Germany, and Russia ; and as regards other countries, 
the United States, Mexico, India, and our Australian 
colonies, have also established stations at great elevations, 
in an energetic prosecution of this important department 
