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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol.. XXV. No. 628 



ceived, and what gives value to this striking 

 demonstration is that we have here the opinion 

 of average France, not that of a political coterie 

 or of a cultivated eliie. The world knows now 

 approximately what France thinks of her great 

 men and what her conception is of civic duty, 

 as well as of intellectual and moral distinc- 

 tion. It is the revelation to the foreigner of 

 an idealism certainly unsuspected. Only 

 those observers who have had the privilege of 

 studying the evolution of the French mind 

 and feeling over an unbroken series of years 

 on the spot were aware of the profound trans- 

 formation which the Republican school sys- 

 tem and stable Republican government in 

 general have affected in the points of view of 

 the present generation of Frenchmen. 



The winner of the recent contest is Pasteur. 

 Victor Hugo runs him close, having received 

 1,227,103 votes against 1,338,425 for the world- 

 renowned man of science. But it is char- 

 acteristic that two men of peaceful pursuits 

 should precede on the list those great French- 

 men who might have appeared at first sight to 

 have most contributed to that special kind of 

 glory known as French. Gambetta follows 

 Victor Hugo with 1,155,6Y2 votes. Then come 

 Napoleon I. and Thiers with 1,118,034 and 

 1,039,453 votes, respectively. For the sixth 

 place what foreigner would have suggested the 

 name of Lazare Carnot? Yet a moment's re- 

 flection will reveal the reasons for his juxa- 

 position with Thiers. The latter has certainly 

 been acclaimed as the ' liberateur du terri- 

 toire,' and what, after all, was that work of 

 his but the repetition of the incomparable ser- 

 vices rendered by Carnot in the organization 

 of the Republican armies of the Revolution ? 

 With remarkable persistency, moreover, the 

 French soul to-day vibrates between the pri- 

 mordial patriotic concern as to the defence of 

 the integrity of French soil and its emotion of 

 gratitude in presence of the great peaceful 

 benefactors of the nation in the fields either 

 of science or of art. The order of the names 

 that succeed Lazare Carnot's is the proof of 

 this statement — Curie, the discoverer of 

 radium ; Alexandre Dumas pere, who has 

 charmed several generations not only of 

 Frenchmen, but also of Englishmen; Dr. 



Roux, the inventor of the diphtheritic serum; 

 Parmentier, the introducer of the potato into 

 France; then Ampere, the father of dynamic 

 electricity; Brazza, the founder of French 

 West Africa ; Zola, whose place here thirteenth 

 on the list shows conclusively what France 

 now thinks of his courageous deed as author 

 of ' J'accuse ' ; Lamartine, a consoling elec- 

 tion for those who have always regarded the 

 author of ' The Lake ' as the most seductive 

 Frenchman of the nineteenth century; and 

 FranQois Arago, the astronomer and physicist. 

 This brings us to the sixteenth place, which 

 is held gloriously by Mme. Sarah Bernhardt. 

 But immediately afterwards comes II. Wal- 

 deck-Rousseau, MacMahon, the hero of the 

 famous " J'y suis, j'y reste " ; President Car- 

 not, who certainly incarnates here a very char- 

 acteristic conception of civic duty; Chevreul, 

 the chemist; and Chateaubriand, the most elo- 

 quently French of all the writers of the last 

 century, unless exception be made for 

 Michelet, who figures twenty-third on this list 

 after de Lesseps. This is a victory which 

 shows how short-lived is French rancour. Ten 

 years ago no plebiscite in France would have 

 given such a result, the stupendoiis energy of 

 the creator of the Suez Canal having been for- 

 gotten amid the tempest of the Panama 

 scandals. The next four names are Jacquard, 

 the inventor of the weaving machine, Jules 

 Verne, President Loubet, and Denfert-Roch- 

 ereau. The list is to be continued until we 

 have before us 502 names. These results con- 

 stitute a lesson full of instruction not only 

 for the ruler's of France, but for foreigners 

 curious as to the temperament and ideals of 

 contemporary Frenchmen. — Paris correspond- 

 ent of the London Times. 



CURRENT NOTES ON LAND FORMS 

 In taking up again the series of ' Current 

 Notes on Physiography,' begun in 1895 in the 

 first of the New Series volumes of Science, 

 the senior reviewer has as associates Professor 

 D. W. Johnson, of Harvard, and Mr. Isaiah 

 Bowman, of Yale. The term physiogTaphy 

 was taken, at the beginning of the series 

 twelve years ago, to be the modern equivalent 

 of what has long been known as physical 



