Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 8.djvu/882

 LAPPAREKT LAPPARENT France, and conducted the soundings with such skill that his report was pronounced most valualile and served as a basis for subsequent inquiries on the ques- tion. The French Government gave him the Cross of the Legion of Honour. Towards the end of 1875 a chair of geology and mineralogy was founded for him at the Catholic University of Paris. For a few years he occupied that position without severing his con- nexion with the mining department, and when the leave of absence he had obtained was cancelled (ISSO), he preferred to give up his official position and continue to teach a science so dear to him in an atmosphere more congenial to his religious convictions. In ISSO he was elected president of the Geological Society of France. Two years later he liegan to write his "Traite de G^ologie", published at Paris in 18S4, the style of which work was as remarkable as its contents. He treated the subject in a new way, abandoning the old methods and laying the foundation of the scientific history of the earth. Instead of confining himself to a dry description and to a mere enumeration of fossils, he ventured to make hj'potheses on terrestrial dy- namics, as well as on the past and present evolutions of the earth. In 1885 appeared his " Cours de Min(-r- alogie", which gained him the presidency of the French Society of Mineralogy, and a prize from the Academy of Sciences. Not long afterwards he began at the Catholic University his lectures on physical geography, a work of such merit that he was offered the chairmanship of the central committee of the So- ciety of Geography in 1895, and was sent to represent the society at the international congress held in Lon- don. In 1890 he published his " Lemons de Geogra- phic Physique", a work of decided originality. Lap- parent was the first to treat this subject in France, and the success of his lectures at the Catholic L^niversity, the first ever given in this department, prompted the French Government to establish a similar chair at the Sorbonne. His chief qualities as teacher consisted in the clearness and method of his treatment. He saw at once the essential points of a question and showed them in a new light. Hence the enduring success of his publications, which were many times reprinted. However deep and complicated the subject, his treat- ment made for simplicity. In recognition of his ser- vices to science, he was elected to the Academy of Sciences in June, 1897, and in May, 1907, when JBer- thelot died, de Lapparent succeeded him as secretary of that academy. De Lapparent was not only a prolific author of orig- inal scientific works, but also, in the highest sense of the term, a remarkable " popularizer". Considering that the proper role of the scientist, holding by his work the closest communion with truth in this world, is to spread this truth abroad, he set forth in words perfectly simple and clear, but withal perfectly exact, the great problems of contemporary science. The style in which he did this derived an added dignity from the very simplicity in which he clothed these ab- stract themes. He never had recourse to that pre- tentious pomp of style with which ignorance is wont to mystify the lay mind. De Lapparent's writings embodied the most abstract thoughts, straightway illuminated, however, by his marvellous gift of sim- plification. His articles in " Le Correspondant " are masterpieces. They were always cordially welcomed, not only by the laity, but also bj^ his colleagues in the world of science. In these articles he gave to the world in popular form his tetrahedral theory of the form of the earth, a theory as simple in principle as it was pregnant in possible applications. He also made known Bruckner's curious theory of meteorological periodicity, and discussed the question of the flatten- ing of the earth, a subject to which he succeeded in imparting much new life and significance. In this same happy style de Lapparent wrote that remark- able little work, "Some Thoughts about the Nature of the Earth's Crust", which, although based upon a series of lectures delivered by him to a lay audience, shows wonderful philosophic grasp and scientific com- prehension. iMlCHlEU, Rivisia d. fis. nal. e sci. nat. (Pisa. 1908), 225-42; Pervinquiere in Revue scienlifique (Paris, 1908), 609-14; Le Correspondant (Paris, 1908). Louis N. Delamakke. IV New York— PriD New York— Binders.