884 
The works of Charles Hermite in the 
theory of functions are a new revelation of 
his genius. His profound investigations on 
Abelian functions, their division and their 
transformation, as also those relative to 
elliptic functions, form a monument of 
glory erected to French science, disclosing 
the sagacity of the grand analyst in the 
facility with which are deduced from the 
most lofty analytic investigations, corol- 
laries which unveil difficult properties of 
the theory of numbers. 
Neither can we neglect to mention the 
work, ‘Sur quelques applications des fone- 
tions elliptiques’ (1885), of which only the 
first part was published: in this are found 
the beautiful applications of these functions 
which conduct him to the general integral 
of the equation of Lamé on the equilibrium 
of temperature of a homogeneous ellipsoid, 
which leads the author, in two particular 
cases, to the study of the rotation of a solid 
body around a fixed point (when there do 
not exist accelerating forces) treated by 
Jacobi, and to the consideration of the 
conic pendulum. 
So far as we know, Hermite leaves two 
didactic works: his ‘Cours de la faculté 
des sciences de Paris’ (1891), and his ‘ Note 
sur la théorie des fonctions elliptiques’ (168 
pages), which serves as appendix to the 
“Cours de calcul differentiel et integral,’ of 
J. A. Serret (4th ed., 1894). 
We have from him also two brief but in- 
teresting notes on the invariants of binary 
forms of the 5th and 6th order in the French 
translation of Salmon’s ‘ Higher Algebra.’ 
The French geometer had the good for- 
tune not granted all great men to see recog- 
nized in his lifetime by the scientific world 
his extraordinary merit. The 24th of De- 
cember, 1892, his sixtieth birthday, the 
friends, the disciples, the admirers of the 
great geometer assembled at the Sorbonne 
to present him the gold medal struck in his 
honor by international subscription. The 
SCIENCE. 
[N.S. Vou. XIII. No. 336. 
illustrious artist Chaplain cut upon it the 
bust of the one commemorated, and trans- 
lated on to metal with admirable fidelity his 
venerable face, affable and frank, illumi- 
nated by the scintilla of genius. 
The Minister of Public Instruction, M. 
Ch. Dupuy, presented to Hermite in the 
name of the President of the Republic the 
insignia of Grand Officer of the Legion 
of Honor, and the messages were read of 
those who from various parts of the world 
associated themselves with the splendid 
ceremony. 
High testimony of admiration and sym- 
pathy was offered the great geometer more 
recently upon the occasion of the meeting 
at Paris, last August, of the International 
Congress of Mathematicians. 
The Congress sent him a telegram of 
admiration and sympathy (he was at Saint- 
Jean-de Luz). This act caused vast satis- 
faction and profound emotion to the scien- 
tist, as he wrote me in one of his last letters. 
Hermite retained to the last day of his 
life his privileged intelligence; but his 
body suffered. In a long letter of his, a 
few days before his death, he complained 
of his attacks of asthma and of the lack of 
appetite and of sleep : he seemed to foresee 
the nearness of his end, so that sending me 
one of his works, he said that this would be 
without doubt the last! and that he had in 
great part accomplished it at Saint-Jean-de 
Luz, where by benefit of the mild climate 
had reawakened his mathematical activity. 
This last work is a letter to Professor 
Pincherle published in Tomo VY. of the 
Annali di Matematica. 
He told us also that he had sent a brief 
article to the new journal, Le Matematiche, 
of Professor Alasia. 
We will end by expressing a wish. We 
wish that those who have the authority 
would take the initiative toward an inter- 
national subscription for a work containing 
an extended biography of the ever-memo- 
