, an eminent French Inathematician and astronomer, was born at Rumigiiy
, an eminent French
Inathematician and astronomer, was born at Rumigiiy in
the diocese of Rheims on March 15, 1713. His father
having quitted the army, in which he had served, amused
himself in his retirement with studying mathematics and
mechanics, in which he proved the author of several inventions of considerable use to the public. From this example of his father, our author “almost in his infancy took a
fancy to mechanics, which proved of signal service to him
in his maturer years. At school he discovered early tokens
of genius. He came to Paris in 1729; where he studied
the classics, philosophy, and mathematics, and afterwards
divinity in the college de Navarre, with a view to the
church, but he never entered into priest’s orders, apprehending that his astronomical studies, to which he had
become much devoted, might too much interfere with his
religious duties. His turn for astronomy soon connected
him with the celebrated Cassini, who procured him an
apartment in the observatory; where, assisted by the counsels of this master, he soon acquired a name among the
astronomers, in 1739 he was joined with M. Cassini de
Thury, son to M. Cassini, in verifying the meridian through
the whole extent of France; and in the same year he was,
named professor of mathematics in the college of Mazarine.
In 1741 or author was admitted into the academy of
sciences as an adjoint member for astronomy and had
many excellent papers inserted in their memoirs; beside
which he published several useful treatises, viz. Elements
of Geometry, Astronomy, Mechanics, and Optics. He also
carefully computed all the eclipses of the sun and moon
that had happened since the Christian sera, which were
printed in the work entitled
” L'Art de verifier les dates,“&c. Paris, 1750, 4to. He also compiled a volume of astronomical ephemerides for the years 1745 to 1755; another
for the years 1755 to 1765 and a third for the years 1765
to 1775 as also the most correct solar tables of any; and
an excellent work entitled
” Astronomic fundamenta novissimis solis et stellarum observationibus stabilita."