CAMUS

, (Charles-Stephen-Lewis), a celebrated French mathematician, Examiner of the royal Schools of Artillery and Engineers, Secretary and Professor of the Royal Academy of Architecture, Honorary member of that of the Marine, and fellow of the Royal Society of London, was born at Cressy en Brie, the 25th of August 1699. His early ingenuity in mechanics and his own intreaties induced his parents to send him to study at a college in Paris, at 10 years of age; where in the space of two years his progress was so great, that he was able to give lessons in mathematics, and thus to defray his own expences at the college, without any farther charge to his parents. By the assistance of the celebrated Varignon, young Camus soon ran through the course of the higher mathematics, and acquired a name among the learned. He made himself more particularly known to the Academy of Sciences in 1727, by his memoir upon the subject of the prize which they had proposed for that year, viz, ‘To determine the most advantageous way of masting ships;’ in consequence of which he was named that year Adjoint-Mechanician to the Academy; and in 1730 he was appointed professor of Architecture. In less than three years after, he was honoured with the secretaryship of the same; and the 18th of April 1733, he obtained the degree of Associate in the Academy, where he distinguished himself greatly by his memoirs upon living forces, or bodies in motion acted upon by forces, on the figure of the teeth of wheels and pinions, on pump work, and several other ingenious memoirs.

In 1736 he was sent, in company with Messieurs Clairaut, Maupertuis, and Monnier, upon the celebrated expedition to measure a degree at the north polar circle; in which he rendered himself highly useful, not only as a mathematician, but also as a mechanician and an artist, branches for which he had a remarkable talent.

In 1741 Camus had the honour to be appointed Pensioner-Geometrician in the Academy; and the same year he invented a gauging-rod and sliding-rule proper at once to gauge all sorts of casks, and to calculate their contents. About the year 1747 he was named Examiner of the Sehools of Artillery and Engineers: and, in 1756, one of the eight mathematicians appointed to examine by a new measurement, the base which had formerly been measured by Picard, between Villejuifve and Juvisi; an operation in which his ingenuity and exactness were of great utility. In 1765 M. Camus was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London; and died the 4th of May 1768, in the 69th year of his age; being succeeded by the celebrated d'Alembert in his office of Geometrician in the French Academy; and leaving behind him a great number of manuscript treatises on various branches of the mathematics.

The works published by M. Camus, are:

1. Course of Mathematics for the use of the Engineers, 4 vols. in 8vo.

2. Elements of Mechanics.

3. Elements of Arithmetic.

And his memoirs printed in the volumes of the Academy, are:

1. Of Accelerated Motions by living forces: vol. for 1728.

2. Solution of a Geometrical Problem of M. Cramer: 1732.

3. On the figure of the teeth and pinions in clocks: 1733.

4. On the action of a Musket ball, piercing a pretty thick piece of wood, without communicating any considerable velocity to it: 1738.

5. On the best manner of employing buckets for raising water: 1739.

6. A Problem in Statics: 1740.

7. On an Instrument for gauging of vessels: 1741.

8. On the Standard of the Ell Measure: 1746.

9. On the Tangents of Points common to several branches of the same curve: 1747.

10. On the Operations in measuring the distance between the centres of the pyramids of Villejuive and Juvisy, to discover the best measure of the degree about Paris: 1754.

11. On the Masting of Ships: Prize Tom. 2.

12. The Manner of working Oars: Mach. tom. 2.

13. A Machine for moving many Colters at once: Mach. tom. 2.