ventors, and the encouragement of the mechanical and
practical sciences. Many of the most creditable national enterprises,
dating from this period, are due to his advocacy--such as the reward to
L.J.M. Daguerre for the invention of photography, the grant for the
publication of the works of P. Fermat and Laplace, the acquisition of
the museum of Cluny, the development of railways and electric
telegraphs, the improvement of the navigation of the Seine, and the
boring of the artesian wells at Grenelle.

In the year 1830 also he was appointed director of the Observatory, and
as a member of the chamber of deputies he was able to obtain grants of
money for rebuilding it in part, and for the addition of magnificent
instruments. In the same year, too, he was chosen perpetual secretary of
the Academy of Sciences, in room of J.B.J. Fourier. Arago threw his
whole soul into its service, and by his faculty of making friends he
gained at once for it and for himself a world-wide reputation. As
perpetual secretary it fell to him to pronounce historical _eloges_ on
deceased members; and for this duty his rapidity and facility of
thought, his happy piquancy of style, and his extensive knowledge
peculiarly adapted him.

In 1834 he again visited England, to attend the meeting of the British
Association at Edinburgh. From this time till 1848 he led a life of
comparative quiet--not the quiet of inactivity, however, for his
incessant labours within the Academy and the Observatory produced a
multitude of contributions to all departments of physical science,--but
on the fall of Louis Philippe he left his laboratory to join in forming
the provisional government. He was entrusted with the discharge of two
important functions, that had never before been united in one person,
viz. the ministry of war and of marine; and in the latter capacity he
effected some salutary reforms, such as the improvement of rations in
the navy and the abolition of flogging. He also abolished political
oaths of all kinds, and, against an array of moneyed interests,
succeeded in procuring the abolition of negro slavery in the French
colonies.

In the beginning of May 1852, when the government of Louis Napoleon
required an oath of allegiance from all its functionaries, Arago
peremptorily refused, and sent in his resignation of his post as
astronomer at the Bureau des Longitudes. This, however, the prince
president, to his credit, declined to accept, and made "an excepti