AMONTONS (William)

, an ingenious French experimental philosopher, was born in Normandy the 31st of August 1663. While at the grammar school, he by sickness contracted a deafness that almost excluded him from the conversation of mankind. In this situation he applied himself to the study of geometry and mechanics; with which he was so delighted that it is said he refused to try any remedy for his disorder, either because he deemed it incurable, or because it increased his attention to his studies. Among other objects of his study, were the arts of drawing, of land-surveying, and of building; and shortly after he acquired some knowledge of those more sublime laws by which the universe is regulated. He studied with great care the nature of barometers and thermometers; and wrote his treatise of Observations and Experiments concerning a new Hour-glass, and concerning Barometers, Thermometers, and Hygroscopes; as also some pieces in the Journal des Savans. In 1687, he presented a new hygroscope to the Academy of Sciences, which was much approved. He found out a method of conveying intelligence to a great distance in a short space of time: this was by making signals from one person to another, placed at as great distances from each other as they could see the signals by means of telescopes. When the Royal Academy was new regulated in 1699, Amontons was chosen a member of it, as an eleve under the third Astronomer; and he read there his New Theory of Friction, in which he happily cleared up an important object in mechanics. In fact he had a particular genius for making experiments: his notions were just and delicate: and he knew how to prevent the inconveniences of his new inventions, and had a wonderful skill in executing them. He died of an inflammation in his bowels, the 11th of October 1705, being only 42 years of age.

The eloge of Amontons may be seen in the volume of the Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences for the year 1705, Hist. pa. 150. And his pieces contained in the different volumes of that work, which are pretty numerous, and upon various subjects, as the air, action of fire, barometers, thermometers, hygrometers, friction, machines, heat, cold, rarefactions, pumps, &c, may be seen in the volumes for the years 1696, 1699, 1702, 1703, 1704, and 1705.