Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume X.djvu/168

 162 LAPITO invited the centaurs to a feast on occasion of his marriage with Hippodamia; but, heated with wine and urged on by Mars, they attempt- ed to carry off the bride and other women, whereupon a conflict ensued, in which the Lapithse were victorious. The story is related by Hesiod and Ovid. The Lapithse were prob- ably a Pelasgian people, whose conquest of some less civilized tribe originated the classic fable. To them is ascribed the invention of bits and bridles. LAPITO, Lonis Angnste, a French painter, born at St. Maur, near Paris, in 1805, died in Bou- logne, April 7, 1874. He studied in Paris un- der Watelet and Heim, and in foreign coun- tries, and became a distinguished landscape painter. Many of his works are in French, Belgian, and Dutch collections. One of the finest of them, in the Palais d'Orsay, was de- stroyed in the burning of that building during the commune (1871). LAPLACE, Cyrille Pierre Theodore, a French navigator, born at sea, Nov. 7, 1793. He early entered the navy, became captain in 1828, and commanded in two expeditions of circumnavi- gation, which he described in his Voyage au- tour du monde par les mers de VInde et de la Chine, execute sur la corvette de VEtat la Fa- write pendant les annees 1830, 1831 et 1832 (5 vols., Paris, 1833-'9), and in his Campagne de circumnavigation de la fregate VArtemise pendant les annees 1837, 1838, 1839 et 1840 (4 vols., 1845-'8). He was made vice admiral in 1853, and retired in 1858. LAPLACE, Pierre Simon, marquis de, a French astronomer and mathematician, born at Beau- mont-en-Auge, Lower Normandy, March 23, 1749, died in Paris, March 5, 1827. Of the events of his early life he seldom spoke after he had attained rank and distinctions, but he is known to have been of humble origin, and to have been enabled by the assistance of rich friends to study at the college of Caen and at the military school of Beaumont, whence at the age of 18 he went to Paris with letters of introduction to D'Alembert and others. D'Alembert at first took no notice of him ; but receiving from him a remarkable paper on the general principles of mechanics, he at once in- terested himself in behalf of the young stran- ger, and by his influence procured him in 1768 or 1769 a professorship of mathematics in the military school of Paris. Thenceforth for more than half a century Laplace devoted himself to the pursuit of science with an ardor and indus- try productive of the most beneficial results, and which his participation in public business and politics never seriously interrupted. In 1773, when he was barely 24 years of age, his papers on the calculus and various astronomical questions, read before the academy of sciences, procured his admission into that body as an associate. A few years later he became ex- aminer of the pupils of the royal artillery corps, and in 1785 he was elected a member of the academy of sciences. He subsequently lec- LAPLACE tured on analysis at the normal school, served in the board of longitude, and presented to the council of 500 a report of the proceedings of the institute from its establishment. The rev- olution drew him into the sphere of politics, in which he accomplished nothing worthy of his fame, and in which the ignoble traits of his character were prominently displayed. At first he appears to have been a radical republi- can, and it is said that in 1796 he was one of a deputation who were presented at the bar of the council of 500 to swear eternal hatred to royalty. Two years later he paid his court to Gen. Bonaparte, fresh from his Italian cam- paigns, thus securing his election to the in- stitute ; and after the overthrow of the direc- tory he was intrusted by the first consul with the department of the interior. So little capa- city did he display in this office, however, that within six weeks he was superseded by Lucien Bonaparte, being appointed to a seat in the senate. Napoleon in his exile at St. Helena, with more point than justice, complained that Laplace " carried the spirit of the infinitesimal calculus into the management of business." In fact, the department was then one of the most difficult in France to manage, and a more experienced statesman than Laplace might have failed to discharge its functions properly. Un- der Napoleon he was made vice president and chancellor of the senate, a count of the empire, an officer of the legion of honor, and was the recipient of many other distinctions. He never- theless turned against his benefactor when mis- fortunes overtook him, voted for his deposition in 1814, and was rewarded by Louis XVIII. with the title of marquis. He also suppressed in the second edition of his Theorie des proba- Ulites (Paris, 1814) the dedication to "Na- poleon the Great," contained in the edition of 1812, in which, as in the dedication to vol. iii. of the Mecanique celeste, of which he did not live to publish a second edition, he had expressed himself under lasting obligations to Napoleon for numerous benefits. During the hundred days he refrained from presenting him- self at the Tuileries, and after the second resto- ration of the Bourbons his employments were chiefly of a scientific character, the most im- portant being the presidency of the commission for reorganizing the polytechnic school, and that of the academy of sciences. As a physi- cist Laplace occupies a position second to that of no mathematical philosopher since Newton, and to his labors the science of astronomy owes the discovery of the invariability of the major axes of the planetary orbits, and of the great inequality of the motions of Jupiter and Saturn, the settlement of the problem of the acceleration of the mean motion of the moon, the theory of Jupiter's satellites, and other important laws. In his knowledge of physi- cal principles he was probably superior to any contemporary analyst ; and his invention, in conjunction with Lavoisier, of the calorimeter for measuring the capacities of bodies for