Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 39.djvu/104

94 name of Cuvier stands pre-eminent in the zoölogical world. His method of classification in zoölogy was revolutionary, and is still the recognized authority; his researches in comparative anatomy may be said to be creative, for not until then was it a science, and his influence upon paleontology was not less notable. Both Geoffroy and Cuvier, like most Frenchmen, took great interest in public affairs, and both filled posts of high honor and responsibility in the state.

Goethe, whose allegiance to the synthetic doctrines of Geoffroy may have biased his judgment against its great antagonist, says: "Cuvier, the great naturalist, is admirable for his power of representation and his style. No one expounds a fact better than he, but he has scarcely any philosophy. He will bring up very well informed but few profound scholars." It must be confessed that events have proved the criticism of Goethe to be true, unless we make the single exception of Milne-Edwards.

It was in the year 1852 that Léon Foucault, the distinguished physicist, conducted some experiments in Paris to prove the rotation of the earth, which for their simplicity and beauty aroused the admiration and wonder of his confrères. He constructed an enormous pendulum by suspending a ball by a fine wire from the dome of the Pantheon, and set it in vibration in a northerly and southerly direction. A pendulum thus started will continue to swing in the same plane for hours. By carefully marking upon the pavement the plane of swing and comparing it with that made after the lapse of several hours, it was seen that the earth had turned under it at a definite rate. This beautiful demonstration, making visible to human eyes the actual revolution of the earth upon its axis, was many times repeated, once in our own Capitol at Washington.

In 1801, the accommodations of the Louvre being no longer esteemed sufficient, the Institute was given rooms in the Palais des Quatre Nations, where the several academies meet successively in different rooms. Each academy governs itself and awards its own prizes, but the library and museum are held in common, and the Institute has two prizes separate from those of the academies. Each academy meets weekly, and once yearly in public, and the grand séance of the whole five bodies meets annually on the 15th of August.

A writer—it is but fair to say that he is an Englishman—thus compares the French Institute and the Royal Society of England: "The members of the French Institute receive a yearly stipend; the Fellows of the Royal Society pay an annual sum for the support of their institution and the advancement of science. It would be repugnant to the feelings of Englishmen to submit to the regulations of the Institute, which require official addresses, and the