Page:Enterprise and Adventure.djvu/83

Rh

observation that the lives of men of learning rarely present any romantic incidents receives a striking contradiction from the biography of the late M. Arago. When only twenty years of age this celebrated savant was entrusted with the important and difficult task of continuing the measurement of the meridian line in Spain, left unfinished by the untimely death of the distinguished mathematician Méchain. For this purpose the young astronomer was, during the greater part of the year 1806, confined to a tent on an elevated peak among the mountains of Valencia, having for exercise ground only a space of twenty-two square yards, and seeing no one during that time but two Carthusian monks, who occasionally ventured, in spite of a rule of their order, to ascend the mountain, in order to hold converse him. Here his lonely situation was made still more irksome by the vexation attendant upon the failure of the signals necessary to the carrying out of the experiments. Owing to the reflectors established on the mountain of Camprey being turned slightly out of the right direction, he was for nearly six months unable to see the light, and was therefore compelled to suspend his operations. At length the monotony of his labours was relieved by the arrival of his friend and companion in scientific studies, M. Biot, with new instruments, with which they, were to proceed to Formentara, the southern extremity of the arc which they were engaged