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SECOND report--! 832 . 
Corps of Engineers, who not only composed a most valuable Me¬ 
moir on double refraction, but enriched the subject with a dis¬ 
covery which laid the foundation of a new science. Having acci¬ 
dentally turned a doubly-refracting prism to the windows of the 
palace of the Luxemburg, which were at the time illuminated by 
the setting sun, he was surprised to observe that one of the 
double images of the windows vanished alternately during the 
rotation of the prism; and after various fruitless speculations on 
the cause of this singular phenomenon, he was conducted to the 
great discovery, that light reflected at a particular angle from 
transparent bodies is polarized like one of the rays produced by 
double refraction. This singular result opened a wide field of 
inquiry to philosophers: and the successive labours of Malus, 
Arago, Biot, Fresnel, and Cauchy in France ; Seebeck and 
Mitscherlich in Germany ; and Young, Herschel, and Airy in 
England—present a train of research “ than which,” as a di¬ 
stinguished philosopher remarks, “ nothing prouder has adorn¬ 
ed the annals of physical science since the development of the 
true system of the universe.” 
It would be impossible in a brief Report like the present, to 
convey even a general idea of the relative labours of these emi¬ 
nent philosophers,—of the new laws which they have establish¬ 
ed,—of the splendid phenomena which they have brought to 
light, or of the valuable applications which they have made of 
their discoveries. But, without giving offence to those who sur¬ 
vive, we may distinguish two names, Malus and Fresnel , already 
marked out by the melancholy preeminence of a short and bril¬ 
liant career,—names which will ever be united in the history of 
Science by the extraordinary similarity of their lives and la¬ 
bours, of their honours and their misfortunes. 
Devoted from their earliest years to the study of the sciences, 
they entered with ardour on the same field of inquiry,—the 
double refraction of light. Versed in the same abstract acquire¬ 
ments, they were both called to the situation of Examiner of 
Natural Philosophy and Geometry in the Polytechnic School. 
Their sovereign conferred upon them the same honours, the 
Cross of the Legion of Honour. The early discoveries of each 
were crowned by the Physical Prize of the National Institute. 
Their latest labours were rewarded by the Royal Society of 
London with the Rumford Medals ; and, as if Providence had 
invigorated their exhausted frames to enable them to receive 
on their death-bed this brilliant trophy of their success, they 
both sunk beneath its banners, the one in the 37th and the other 
in the 39th year of his age. Thus triumphant in the same field, 
crowned with the same laurels, and doomed to the same early 
