REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR I917 153 



The unobtrusive and almost shrinking modesty which always 

 characterized Haiiy, together with his sober garb and peaceful 

 bearing, must have preserved him from further outrage, for we do 

 not hear of his being again molested. Later the Convention nom- 

 inated him as one of the Commission of Weights and Measures 

 (1793-94). Under the Republic he was constituted Minister of 

 Mines and prepared his great work, the Traiie de Mineralogie, which 

 was published in 1801. Of this work Cuvier writes: 



" He has made of mineralogy a science just as precise and just as 

 methodical as astronomy. ... In a word, we may say that 

 M. Haiiy is to Werner and Rome Delisle what Newton was to Kepler 

 and Copernicus." 



One incident may be cited to illustrate his characteristic charity 

 and lack of self-assertion. On the death of Daubenton in 1799 

 when, according to precedent, Dolomieu, his assistant, would have 

 been named as a successor to the chair of mineralogy at the Museum 

 of Natural History, it happened that Dolomieu had been arrested 

 and held as a political prisoner in Sicily. Haiiy, who was the obvious 

 candidate for this honor, so urged the claims of his absent rival 

 that, through sentiment rather than merit, Dolomieu was given the 

 chair, which, however, he never lived to fill, his premature death in 

 1802 leaving the field free to his generous colleague who was immedi- 

 ately elected to the professorship. 



Haiiy had never relinquished his studies in physics; indeed he 

 constantly drew upon his skill and knowledge as a physicist in his 

 mineralogical researches. On being asked by the government, 

 however, to prepare a treatise on physics, to be used as a textbook 

 in the schools, he hesitated to undertake a task which would cause 

 him to abandon even temporarily his chosen field. The Abbe 

 Emery, the ancient superior of' Saint Sulpice, advised him in these 

 words : 



" Do not hesitate; you would commit a grave mistake if you lost 

 this occasion, in treating of nature to speak of its Author . . . 

 and do not forget," he added, " to take on the title page your title 

 of Metropolitan Canon." 



The treatise on physics, like everything else from the pen of Haiiy, 

 is a model of purity of thought and clarity of expression to which 

 sterling literary qualities his natural love of teaching has added a 

 charm of interest calculated to inspire the young students with his 

 own love of the natural sciences. 



The closing years of his life were marked by another reversal 



