shoulder, with which, he estimated the height of mountains. His methods of investigation were sometimes extraordinarily ingenious. In taking the temperature, for instance, in the crater of Pasto, having found his thermometer inadequate, he let down some of the tin-foil wrappings of his chocolate-cakes. The tin was melted. The temperature was therefore higher than the melting point of that metal, or more than 235° C. He then let down a pistol-ball, which was not melted. The temperature was thus found to be lower than the melting-point of lead, or less than 332° C, and was therefore somewhere between the two extremes. The guide who accompanied him on this adventure could not conceal his nervousness at hearing the subterranean roarings of the volcano, and, looking into the crater, asked, "What if it should burst out?" "Then we should be lost," replied Boussingault. The guide answered, calmed by the coolness of his superior, "That is what I think too," In 1831 he accomplished the ascent of Chimborazo, which Humboldt had been obliged to give up, with the loss of one of his instruments—and recovered the instrument. Boussingault had many stories of his adventures in the South American wilds, which he used to tell with much enjoyment, and which his friends found very entertaining. During his travels on the pampas he was attended by an Indian, who cared for him as if he had been a child. He having been attacked by a violent fever, the Indian saved his life by himself chewing the proper food for his helpless patient and putting it into his mouth. On these plains Boussingault made his investigations of curare and other poisons, and of the properties of coca. He witnessed a number of earthquakes. On one such occasion he was obliged to drag out by the feet some unfortunate persons, who had prostrated themselves in front of a church in prayer, to save them from being crushed by the falling building. The stupefied natives made loud confessions of their sins, concerning which the chemist used to remark, when telling of them in after-years, that he heard some most curious stories.
Boussingault returned to France in 1833, having gained a hhig scientific reputation. The numerous contributions which he had sent to the Academy, says M. Dehérain, had revealed in him a sagacious and intrepid observer, knowing how to see well, and endowed with a broad critical sense. He was immediately appointed Professor of Chemistry in the Scientific Faculty at Lyons, then made dean of the faculty in 1837, Thénard's successor at the Sorbonne, and afterward professor in the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers in Paris—an office which he held titularly till the end of his life, while he retired from active work in it in 1875, and was succeeded by M. Schloesing.
M. Boussingault's career was diversified by a short period—
