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 DUMAS

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DUMAS

council of Bishop Ireland of St. Paul and rector of the church of the Immaculate Conception, Minneapolis, was nominated as the first bishop of the new see and consecrated at St. Paul, 27 Dec, 1SS9. He was born 1 May, 1841, at Borrisokane, County Tipperary, Ire- land, and ordained for the American mission at All Hallows Seminary, near DubUn, 11 June, 1S67. Emi- grating to the United States, he began his work at St. Paul as an assistant at the cathedral. He was next appointed to establish a parish in the then rising town of Minneapolis and remained there for twenty-two years as pastor of the church of the Immaculate Con- ception. He found, on taking charge of his new dio- cese, a Catholic population of about 19,000, of which 3000 were Indians. There were 20 priests, 15 secular and 5 regular; 34 churches, 10 stations, and 8 Chip- pewa Indian missions attended by Benedictine, Fran- ciscan, and Jesuit missionaries.

The first railroad from Duluth to St. Paul ran only in 1870, and in 1882 the first iron-range road, on which industry the chief reliance for material prosperity rested. The commercial panics of 1872 and 1893 were great blows to this section, but in ten years the priests had increased to 38 and the missions and sta- tions to 74 with 30 Indian missions and stations. The Sisters of St. Benedict had been introduced and were in charge of 9 parish and 2 Indian schools, with 1400 children. They also managed 2 hospitals and a home for the aged-. The Catholic population had also in- creased to 23,000. Since then conditions have bet- tered, and the statistics of the diocese for 1908 give these figures: priests 65, 44 secular, 21 regular; churches with resident priests 50; missions with churches 36; stations 45; chapels 15; academies for girls 3, with 395 pupils; parish schools 10, with 1586 pupils; Indian industrial schools 2, with 192 pupils; orphan asylum 1; hospitals 6; CathoUc population 54,300, White 50,000, Indian 4300. The religious communities represented in the diocese are the Bene- dictine and the Oblate Fathers, the Christian Broth- ers, the Benedictine Sisters, and the Sisters of St. Joseph. The Benedictine Fathers have charge of the Indian missions, and the Benedictine Sisters attend to the needs of the schools established for the benefit of the Indian children, their industrial schools on the Red Lake and White Earth reservations being espe- cially successful in spite of scant meansand other disad- vantages. The constant good done by these institu- tions, for the girls of the tribes especially, has been manifested by every test applied to their operation. The C;hristian Brothers have a high school attached to the cathedral in Duluth.

Reuss, Biog. Cycl. of the Hierarchy of U. S. (Milwaukee, 1898); Catholic News (New York, Dec, 1889), files; Director!/ of Cathedral Parish (Duluth. 1905); Catholic Directory V. 8. (Mil- waukee, 1889-1909); Thebaud, Forty Years in the V. S. (New York, 1904); Ravoux, Memoirs (St. Paul. 1892); Documents in archives of Archdiocese of St. Paul and St. Paul Catholic His- torical Society.

Thomas F. Meehan.

Dumas, Jean-Baptiste, distinguished French chemist and senator, b. at Alais, department of Gard, 14 July, 1800; d. at Cannes, 10 April, 1884. Like many other distinguished chemists, Dumas began his career as a pharmacist, and at Geneva, where he went when a very young man, he obtained a position in the Le Royer pharmacy. Here in connexion with Pro- vost he published a memoir on the physiology of the nervous system which attracted attention and is still well known. This led to an invitation to go to Paris, where he became tutor of Thenard's course of lectures in chemistry at the Ecole Polytechnique and was ap- pointed professor at the .'Vth^n^e. While engaged in these positions his published researches concerning the vapour density of the elements, those on the formula; of alcohols and ethers, his memoirs on the law of sub- stitution in organic compounds, and his work on chemical types gave him an illustrious position in

chemical investigation. The first researches ori the replacing of hydrogen by chlorine in organic bodies is due to him ; this was supplemented by researches as to the atomic weight of carbon, his labours doing much to establish the relations of the hydro-carbon com- pounds in organic chemistry. With Boussingault he studied the composition of water and of the atmos- phere. With Stas he investigated the composition of carbon dioxide, and later his memoirs on hydrogen and the amide compounds brought him at once into the first rank among the chemists of the nineteenth century.

In 1829 he founded the Ecole Centrale des Arts et Manufactures with P^clet, Lavallie, and Olivier. Bril- liant lecture courses in the Sorbonne won him further renown. He re- placed Th^nard as professor at the Ecole Polytech- nique, was profess- or at the Sorbonne and dean of the faculty of sciences. Originally a very poor speaker, by practice and study he acquired elo- cutionarj' powers that brought him great celebrity. Dumas also be- came professor at the Ecole de Mede- cine, a position he resigned in favour of Wurtz.oneofhis most distinguished pupils. His schol- ars included such illustrious men as H. Sainte-Claire De- ville, Wurtz, Debray, Pasteur, and others. Turning his attention to politics, Dumas was elected a deputy from the department of Nord in 1849; among the pro- posed laws in which he was interested were various ones treating the recoining of money, stamped paper, forgery of public acts, taxes on salt, sugar, etc. In 1851 he was appointed minister of agriculture and commerce by Louis Napoleon, and after the coxip d'etat was made senator. From 1832 he was a mem- ber of the Institute, being elected to the Academy of Sciences, and in 1868 he was made a perpetual secre- tary; in 1878 he became a member of the French Academy. In 1858-59 he carried on an animated controversy as to the nature of the elements with Despretz ; in the course of the discussion Dumas' ener- getic methods in attacking his opponent's views ex- cited some criticism. His abandonment of chemical research for polities was considered a misfortune by the scientific world, as he ceased his brilliant investi- gations when in the very prime of his powers.

Dumas was a consistent Catholic, and remained true to his faith all his life. When it was necessary, he never hesitated to defend Christianity against the attacks of materialism. Examples of his views in this regard may be found in his various addresses, as: his address on B^rard; his commemorative address on Faraday, and the speech in which he extended the greetings of the Academy to the historian Taine. The Count d'Haussonville, at the funeral of Dumas, gave eloquent testimony to the latter's religious belief. Dumas was a prolific writer. Among his works may be mentioned; "Traits de chimie appliqu^ aux arts" (8 vols.. 1828-45); "Precis de chimie physiologique et m^dicale"; "LeQons sur la philosophic chimique" (1837); "Essai de statique chimique des etres organi- ses" (1841), the last work written in collaboration with Boussingault. Besides the publications just mentioned there were numerous papers in scientific