The Project Gutenberg EBook of Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men
by Francois Arago

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Title: Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men

Author: Francois Arago

Translator: W. H. Smyth, Baden Powell and Robert Grant

Release Date: September 30, 2005 [EBook #16775]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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BIOGRAPHIES

OF

DISTINGUISHED SCIENTIFIC MEN.

BY FRANCOIS ARAGO,

MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE.

TRANSLATED BY

ADMIRAL W.H. SMYTH, D.C.L., F.R.S., &c.

THE REV. BADEN POWELL, M.A., F.R.S., &c.

AND

ROBERT GRANT, Esq., M.A., F.R.A.S.

FIRST SERIES.

BOSTON:

TICKNOR AND FIELDS.

M DCCC LIX.

RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE:

PRINTED BY H.O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY.

TRANSLATORS' PREFACE.

The present volume of the series of English translations of M. Arago's
works consists of his own autobiography and a selection of some of his
memoirs of eminent scientific men, both continental and British.

It does not distinctly appear at what period of his life Arago composed
the autobiography, but it bears throughout the characteristic stamp of
his ardent and energetic disposition. The reader will, perhaps, hardly
suppress a smile at the indications of self-satisfaction with which
several of the incidents are brought forward, while the air of romance
which invests some of the adventures may possibly give rise to some
suspicion of occasional embellishment; on these points, however, we
leave each reader to judge for himself. In relation to the history of
science, this memoir gives some interesting particulars, which disclose
to us much of the interior spirit of the Academy of Sciences, not always
of a kind the most creditable to some of Arago's former contemporaries.

But a far higher interest will be found to belong to those eloquent
memoirs, or eloges of eminent departed men of science, who had attained
the distinction of being members of the Academy.

In these the reader will find a luminous, eminently simp