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 BECKMANN BECQUEREL 443 spent in arduous studies, and his exclusive habits and oriental surroundings added the prestige of mystery to the extraordinary im- pression produced by his palaces and towers, his gems of art and furniture ; and his fanciful, extravagant, morbid, and eccentric disposition tallied well with the characteristics of his cele- brated romance. Many works were published on Fonthill, and on its artistic and literary treasures, at one time including Gibbon's library, which he had purchased at Lausanne. Among his works is " Italy, with Sketches of Spain and Portugal," published in 1834, though printed in the early part of his life, from his letters written during a residence in those countries. This work has been characterized as a prose poem, and abounds in picturesque and enthusiastic descriptions of scenery and life. In 1835 appeared his " Recollections of an Excursion to the Monasteries of Alcobaca and Batalha." This was his last publication. His " Memoirs " were published in London, 1859 (2 vols.). BECKJIAM, .liiliiuin, a German technologist, born at Hoya, June 4, 1739, died in Hanover, Feb. 4, 1811. He was educated for the church, but abandoned theology in order to devote himself to the natural sciences. For some time lie was professor of natural philosophy in the Lutheran academy of St. Petersburg ; and after studying mineralogy in Sweden, and forming there the acquaintance of Linnseus, he was appointed in 1766 professor at G5t- tingen. He acquired a high reputation by his lectures and treatises on rural economy (Gruiuhdtze der Aeutxchen Landwirthschaft, 6th ed., 1806), finance, commerce, technology, politics, &c. He wrote Beitrage zur Geschichte der Erfin&ung (5 vols., Leipsic, 1780-1805 ; English translation, "History of Inventions," &c., 4 vols., London, 1817; revised ed., 2 vols., 1846). His editions of the "Wonderful His- tories" of Oarystius, of De Mirabilibus Aus- cultationibui, and of the " Treatise on Stones " by Marbodius, are valued. BECKX, Pierre Jean, general of the society of Jesus, born at Sichem, near Louvain, Belgium, Feb. 8, 1795. He was admitted to the society of Jesus at Hildesheim in 1819, was confessor of Ferdinand of Anhalt-Kothon after the conversion of the duke and duchess to Roman Catholicism in 1825, and became pastor of the newly established church at Kothen. After Duke Ferdinand's death in 1830 he accompanied his widow, the duchess Julia, countess of Brandenburg (natural daugh- ter of .Frederick William III. of Prussia), to Vienna. In 1847 he was appointed procurator for the society in Austria, but the revolution of 1848 obliged him to leave that country, and he became rector of the college of Louvain. Subsequently he was the superior of the society for Hungary, and eventually provincial for the whole Austrian empire excepting Galicia. After the death of F. Roothaan, May 8, 1853, he was elected general of the society, July 2. His principal work, Der Monat MariS, (Vienna, 1843 ; 9th ed., 1861) has been translated into Italian, Bohemian, and Polish. In December, 1871, he published an appeal to the representa- tives of foreign governments on the question of the seizure by the Italian cabinet of the great convent of St. Andrew on the Quirinal. BECQl'EREL. I. intoine Cesar, a French phys- icist, born at Chatillon-sur-Loing, March 7, 1788. He was educated at the polytechnic school, served with the army in Spain as an officer of engineers, and retired in 1815 with the rank of major. In 1819 he commenced the publication of his mineralogical and geological researches. In studying the physical prop- erties of amber, he was led to experiment on the discharges of electricity by means of pres- sure ; and that was the starting point of almost all his subsequent investigations. He then observed the evolutions of electricity in even kind of chemical action. These researches led to the refutation of the "theory of contact," by which Volta explained the action of his pile or battery, and to the construction of the first electrical apparatus with a constant cur- rent. The discoveries in electricity made by Becquerel have been published in the Annales de physique et de chimie and in the Mem.oirea de Vacademie des sciences. His investigations enabled him to discover a very simple method of determining the temperature of the interior organs of men and animals. He made numer- ous physiological applications of this method, and discovered that whenever a muscle is con- tracted a certain amount of heat is evolved. Becquerel is also one of the creators of electro- chemistry. In 1828 he made use of this new science in the production of mineral substances, and in treating by the humid process the ores of silver, lead, and copper. For these re- searches he was elected member of the royal society of London, and in April, 1829, of the French academy of sciences. In 1837 the royal society awarded him the Copley medal for his numerous discoveries in science. He was appointed professor at the Paris museum of natural history the same year, and was pro- moted in 1865 to the rank of commander of the legion of honor. Among the list of new substances which Becquerel obtained by the action of electricity may be mentioned alu- minum, silicon, glucium, crystals of sulphur and of iodine, and numerous metallic sul- phurets, such as dodecahedral pyrites, galena, sulphuret of silver, iodurets and double iodu- rets, carbonates, malachite, calcareous spar, dolomite, metallic and earthy phosphates and arseniates, crystallized silica, &c. He also dis- covered a process of electric coloring on gold, silver, and copper, which has been extensively and variously applied in practice. In his electro-chemical investigations, Becquerel's ob- ject was to discover the relations existing be- tween the electric forces and the so-called chemical affinities, and to excite the latter into action by means of the former. All kinds of