Necrology of Count Chaptal. 127 
vantage of proximity, but to infer from thence that the rate of a chro- 
nometer must necessarily be affected by its removal within the sphere 
of the ordinary magnetic influence existing in a ship, appears to us 
not more legitimate than to infer, that, because a chronometer will 
stop if put in the fire, it will necessarily go ill in the ordinary temper- 
ature of a sitting-room. 
We are far from imagining, that, because so much has been done 
for the improvement of chronometers, there is nothing left to be de- 
sired ; and we shall rejoice unfeignedly at any suggestion which may 
enable those who are engaged with the delicate task of constructing 
them, to arrive at this, and by more simple and certain means. Our 
object in writing to you on this occasion, is to convince those whom 
it chiefly concerns, that the errors, and causes of errors, on which 
your respectable correspondents have animadverted, cannot, in the 
present state of chronometrical science, have any appreciable effect 
in practice. 
We are, Sir, your obedient servants, 
Parkinson & FRopsHaM. 
*Change Alley, November 14, 1833. 
Art. XXIII.—WNecrology of Count Cuaptat; translated and com- 
municated by Dr. Lewis Feuchtwanger. 
Jean Antotne Cuaprar, Count of Chantaloup, was born in the 
year 1756, at Nozaret, Dep. de la Lozere. After having finished 
his studies in the college of Rhodes, he went to Montpelier, for the 
purpose of learning the medical sciences under one of his uncles, at 
that time, professor of the school in that city; after receiving the 
degree of doctor, he went to Paris, to devote himself to chemistry, 
for which he had a particular disposition. _ He then obtained the new- 
ly created chair of chemistry in Montpelier, which, possessing the pe- 
culiar talents of an orator, extraordinary memory and all other requi- 
sites of a superior teacher, he filled with not uncommon success; and 
it was here, through his theoretical and practical pursuits, that he 
founded his great reputation. In the year 1790, he published his 
Elemens de Chimie in three volumes, which passed through three 
editions in French, and was translated into other languages. He es- 
tablished several chemical institutions, and among others that of Be- 
rard. General Washington, endeavored to induce him to emigrate 
