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 week—the mathematicians on Wednesdays, the physicists on Saturdays. Duhamel was appointed permanent secretary, a post he owed more to his polished Latinity than to his scientific attainments, all the proceedings of the society being recorded in Latin, and C. A. Couplet was made treasurer. At first the academy was rather a laboratory and observatory than an academy proper. Experiments were undertaken in common and results discussed. Several foreign savants, in particular the Danish astronomer Roemer, joined the society, attracted by the liberality of the Grand Monarque; and the German physician and geometer Tschirnhausen and Sir Isaac Newton were made foreign associates. The death of Colbert, who was succeeded by Louvois, exercised a disastrous effect on the fortunes of the academy. The labours of the academicians were diverted from the pursuit of pure science to such works as the construction of fountains and cascades at Versailles, and the mathematicians were employed to calculate the odds of the games of lansquenet and basset. In 1699 the academy was reconstituted by Louis Phelypeaux, comte de Pontchartrain, under whose department as secretary of state the academies came. By its new constitution it consisted of twenty-five members, ten honorary, men of high rank interested in science, and fifteen pensionaries, who were the working members. Of these three were geometricians, three astronomers, three mechanicians, three anatomists, and three chemists. Each of these three had two associates, and, besides, each pensionary had the privilege of naming a pupil. There were eight foreign and four free associates. The officers were, a president and a vice-president, named by the king from among the honorary members, and a secretary and treasurer chosen from the pensionaries, who held office for life. Fontenelle, a man of wit, and rather a popularizer of science than an original investigator, succeeded Duhamel as secretary. The constitution was purely aristocratical, differing in that respect from that of the French Academy, in which the principle of equality among the members was never violated. Science was not yet strong enough to dispense with the patronage of the great. The two leading spirits of the academy at this period were Clairault and Réaumur. To trace the subsequent fortunes of this academy would be to write the history of the rise and progress of science in France. It has reckoned among its members Laplace, Buffon, Lagrange, D’Alembert, Lavoisier, and Jussieu, the father of modern botany. On the 21st of December 1792 it met for the last time, and it was suppressed with its sister academies by the act of the Convention on the 8th of April 1793. Some of its members were guillotined, some were imprisoned, more were reduced to poverty. The aristocracy of talent was almost as much detested and persecuted by the Revolution as that of rank.

In 1795 the Convention decided on founding an Institut National which was to replace all the academies, and its first class corresponded closely to the old academy of sciences. In 1816 the Académie des sciences was reconstituted as a branch of the Institute. The new academy has reckoned among its members, besides many other brilliant men, Carnot the engineer, the physicists Fresnel, Ampère, Arago, Biot, the chemists Gay-Lussac and Thénard, the zoologists G. Cuvier and the two Geoffroy Saint-Hilaires. In France there were also considerable academies in most of the large towns. Montpellier, for example, had a royal academy of sciences, founded in 1706 by Louis XIV., on nearly the same footing as that of Paris, of which, indeed, it was in some measure the counterpart. It was reconstituted in 1847, and organized under three sections—medicine, science and letters. Toulouse also has an academy, founded in 1640, under the name of Société de lanternistes; and there were analogous institutions at Nîmes, Arles, Lyons, Dijon, Bordeaux and elsewhere.

Germany.—The Collegium Curiosum was a scientific society, founded by J. C. Sturm, professor of mathematics and natural philosophy in the university of Altorf, in Franconia, in 1672, on the plan of the Accademia del Cimento. It originally consisted of twenty members, and continued to flourish long after the death of its founder. The early labours of the society were

devoted to the repetition (under varied conditions) of the most notable experiments of the day, or to the discussion of the results. Two volumes (1676–1685) of proceedings were published by Sturm. The former, Collegium Experimentale sive Curiosum, begins with an account of the diving-bell, “a new invention”; next follow chapters on the camera obscura, the Torricellian experiment, the air-pump, microscope, telescope, &c.

The Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, if judged by the work it has produced, holds the first place in Germany. Its origin was the Societas Regia Scientiarum, constituted in 1700 by Frederick I. on the comprehensive plan of Leibnitz, who was its first president. Hampered and restricted under Frederick William I., it was reorganized under Frederick II. on the French model furnished by Maupertuis, and received its present constitution in 1812. It is divided into two classes and four sections—physical and mathematical, philosophical and historical. Each section has a permanent secretary with a salary of 1200 marks, and each of the 50 regular members is paid 600 marks a year. Among the contributors to its transactions (first volume published in 1710), to name only the dead, we find Immanuel Bekker, Böckling, Bernoulli, F. Bopp, P. Buttmann, Encke (of comet fame), L. Euler, the brothers Grimm, the two Humboldts, Lachmann, Lagrange, Leibnitz, T. Mommsen, J. Müller, G. Niebuhr, C. Ritter (the geographer), Savigny and Zumpt. Frederick II. presented in 1768 A Dissertation on Ennui. To the Berlin Academy we owe the Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum, the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, and the Monumenta Germaniae Historica.

The Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Mannheim was founded by the elector Palatine in 1755. Since 1780 it has devoted itself specially to meteorology, and has published valuable observations under the title of Ephemerides Societatis Meteorologicae Theodoro-Palatinae.

The Bavarian Akademie der Wissenschaften zu München was founded in 1759. It is distinguished from other academies by the part it has played in national education. Maximilian Joseph, the enlightened elector (afterwards king) of Bavaria, induced the government to hand over to it the organization and superintendence of public instruction, and this work was carried out by Privy-councillor Jacobi, the president of the academy. In recent years the academy has specially occupied itself with natural history.

The Königliche Akademie der Wissenschaften, at Erfurt, which dates from 1754 and devotes itself to applied science, and the Hessian academy of sciences at Giessen, which publishes medical transactions, also deserve mention.

Great Britain and Ireland.—In 1616 a scheme for founding a royal academy was started by Edmund Bolton, an eminent scholar and antiquary, who in his petition to King James I., which was supported by George Villiers, marquis of Buckingham, proposed that the title of the academy should be “King James, his Academe or College of honour.” A list of the proposed original members is still extant, and includes the names of George Chapman, Michael Drayton, Ben Jonson, John Selden, Sir Kenelm Digby and Sir Henry Wotton. The constitution is of interest as reflecting the mind of the learned king. The academy was to consist of three classes,—tutelaries, who were to be Knights of the Garter, auxiliaries, all noblemen or ministers of state, and the essentials, “called from out of the most famous lay gentlemen of England, and either living in the light of things, or without any title of profession or art of life for lucre.” Among other duties to be assigned to this academy was the licensing of all books other than theological. The death of King James put an end to the undertaking. In 1635 a second attempt to found an academy was made under the patronage of Charles I., with the title of “Minerva’s Museum,” for the instruction of young noblemen in the liberal arts and sciences, but the project was soon dropped. (For the “British Academy” see III. below.) About 1645 the more ardent followers of Bacon used to meet, some in London, some at Oxford, for the discussion of subjects connected with experimental science. This was the original of (q.v.), which received its charter in 1662.