ROYAL VETERINARY SCHOOL AT ALFORT, 1841-2 583 
object of research by M. Lassaigne. Of these we have only time 
and room to glance at the decomposing action of chlorine on a 
solution of ioduretof potassium, a new chlorometrique procedure, 
simple and exact, and which he proposes to submit to the judg- 
ment of the Academy of Sciences. This procedure, which has 
been employed under different circumstances, will enable us to 
judge of the proportions of chlorine in the solutions of the hypo- 
chlorites, so much employed in the arts and in medicine. M. 
Lassaigne has published a new edition of his useful Abrcgi 
Elementaire de Chimie. 
The Under-secretary of Agriculture and Commerce, M. Camille 
Paganel, next addressed the meeting. He complimented the 
Professors on the rapid improvement of their school, and the in- 
creasing value of the institution over which he presided. Their 
profession was connected with the grand interests of the country ; 
and happy was he to perceive how deeply they were impressed 
with this, and how zealously they were employing themselves in 
the important concerns over which they presided. 
M. Rigot, the professor of anatomy and physiology, expressed 
the feelings of himself and his brethren. “ The solemnity,” said 
he, “ which brings us together to-day has not only for its object 
the recompense of merit in proclaiming it to the public, but it 
furnishes an opportunity to the officers of the school to render an 
account of the labours in which they have been engaged, and to 
give some useful advice to those with whom they have been la- 
bouring, and with many of whom they are now about to part. 
First, I would address myself to those who have not yet termi- 
nated their studies. Far from discouraging you by hinting that 
there yet remains much for you to do before you will attain the 
object at which you are aiming, I would say, redouble your ac- 
tivity and perseverance. If you meet with obstacles in the 
course of your future studies, remember that it is not a few dif- 
ficulties, however great they may at first appear to be, that should 
conquer a determination, seriously reflected on, to labour methodi- 
cally in overcoming the obstacles that present themselves. Under 
the influence of your first efforts, your intellectual faculties will 
develop, and enlarge, and perfect themselves, and be accustomed, 
by little and little, to the objects about which they must habi- 
tually be exercised. 
To diminish, and often to conquer, the greater part of these 
difficulties, there is, as you well know, an artifice, if I may so 
term it, in the study of the sciences, to which the highest degree 
of intelligence is often indebted for its legitimate and durable 
success; — that artifice is method, which exercises the mind without 
fatiguing it. By the aid of that method, gentlemen, the mind 
seizes, without pain, the various facts, even the most complex ones. 
