ny of those brilliant
discoveries in analysis, I had almost said of those sublime
inspirations, which were so familiar to him. Fortunately Euler appended
to his memoir a supplement truly worthy of his genius. Father Lozeran de
Fiesc and the Count of Crequi were rewarded with the high honour of
seeing their names inscribed beside that of the illustrious geometer,
although it would be impossible in the present day to discern in their
memoirs any kind of merit, not even that of politeness, for the courtier
said rudely to the Academy: "the question, which you have raised,
interests only the curiosity of mankind."

Among the competitors less favourably treated, we perceive one of the
greatest writers whom France has produced; the author of the _Henriade_.
The memoir of Voltaire was, no doubt, far from solving the problem
proposed; but it was at least distinguished by elegance, clearness, and
precision of language; I shall add, by a severe style of argument; for
if the author occasionally arrives at questionable results, it is only
when he borrows false data from the chemistry and physics of the
epoch,--sciences which had just sprung into existence. Moreover, the
anti-Cartesian colour of some of the parts of the memoir of Voltaire was
calculated to find little favour in a society, where Cartesianism, with
its incomprehensible vortices, was everywhere held in high estimation.

We should have more difficulty in discovering the causes of the failure
of a fourth competitor, Madame the Marchioness du Chatelet, for she also
entered into the contest instituted by the Academy. The work of Emilia
was not only an elegant portrait of all the properties of heat, known
then to physical inquirers, there were remarked moreover in it,
different projects of experiments, among the rest one which Herschel has
since developed, and from which he has derived one of the principal
flowers of his brilliant scientific crown.

While such great names were occupied in discussing this question,
physical inquirers of a less ambitious stamp laid experimentally the
solid basis of a future mathematical theory of heat. Some established,
that the same quantity of caloric does not elevate by the same number of
degrees equal weights of different substances, and thereby introduced
into the science the important notion of _capacity_. Others, by the aid
of observations no less certain, proved that heat, applied at the
extremity of a bar, is transmitted to the extr