210 Biographical Notice of M. Le Chevalier Delambre. 
ter and his pupil, which was afterwards renewed in Paris, and 
which terminated only with the life of the poet. 
In the year 1782, in the thirty- third of his age, M. Delambre 
became acquainted with the celebrated French astronomer La- 
lande, who observing his aptitude for the study of astronomy, 
advised him to devote his attention to that science. Influenced 
by this advice, he became the pupil of Lalande, who afterwards 
used to say that Delambre was his best work. 
One of the first papers published by Delambre was his ac- 
count of the occultation of Venus on the 12th April 1785, which 
appeared in the 3d volume of the Nova Acta Petropolitana ; 
and in the same year he contributed to the Memoirs of the Aca- 
demy of Berlin a dissertation on the Elements of the Solar Or- 
bit, — a subject which he afterwards pursued with such distin- 
guished success. The greater number of our author’s papers, 
however, were published in the Connaissance des Terns ; and 
from 1788 to 1817, almost every volume was enriched with a 
valuable memoir from his pen. 
The discovery of the Georgium Sidus by Dr Herschel in 1781, 
directed the attention of astronomers to the determination of its 
orbit. In this new field, Delambre obtained great distinction, 
tie constructed the most accurate tables of the motion of the 
new planet ; and in 1790, the prize given by the French Aca- 
demy was awarded to him for these labours. In 1792, he ob- 
tained another prize for his Tables of the Satellites of Jupiter; 
and he soon afterwards presented to the same learned body his 
Tables of the Motions of Jupiter and Saturn. In consequence 
of these valuable contributions to the science of astronomy, he was 
unanimously chosen a member of the Academy of Sciences in 
1792. In the same year, he was appointed, along with Me- 
chain, to measure an arc of the meridian between Dunkirk and 
Barcelona, an operation which, though often interrupted by the 
events of the Revolution, was finished in the most successful 
manner in 1795. An account of this great undertaking he af- 
terwards published in his Methodes Analytiques pour la deter- 
mination (Tun Arc du Meridien , one volume 4to, 1799, and in 
his Base du Systeme Metriqiie decimal , which appeared in three 
volumes quarto, from 1806 to 1814. These valuable works 
could not fail to obtain the highest approbation from the Insti- 
