ing line:--

A. GASPARD MONGE.

On each side of the upper compartment is inscribed the following
_memento mori_:

LES ELEVES
DE L'ECOLE POLYTECHNIQUE.
A.G. MONGE.
COMTE DE PELUSE.

Underneath this inscription is carved in sunk work an Egyptian lotus
flower in an upright position; on the back of the mausoleum is the date
of the year in which Gaspard Monge died. The body is in the cemetery
below.

AN. MDCCCXX.

Monge was a man of considerable merit as a geometrician, and, while
living, stood preeminent above his contemporaries in the French school
of that day. He is the author of several works, but his most popular one
is entitled "Geometrie Descriptive. par G. Monge, de l'Institut des
Sciences, Lettres et Arts, de l'Ecole Polytechnique; Membre du Senat
Conservateur, Grand Officier de la Legion d'Honeur et Cointe de
l'Empire."

The programme to this work is interesting, as it urges the necessity of
making geometry a branch of the national education, and points out the
beneficial results that would arise therefrom. The following is the
translation:--

To draw the French nation from the dependence, which, even in the
present day it is obliged to place in foreign industry, it is necessary
first to direct the national education towards the knowledge of those
objects which require a correctness which hitherto has been totally
neglected; to accustom the hands of our artists to the management of the
various instruments that are necessary to measure the different degrees
of work, and to execute them with precision; then the finisher becomes
sensible of the accuracy it will require in the different works, and he
will be enabled to set the necessary value on it. For our artists to
become, from their youth, familiar with geometry, and to be in a
condition to attain it, it is necessary in the second place to render
popular the knowledge of a great number of natural phenomena that are
indispensable to the progress of industry; they will then profit for the
advancement of the general instruction of the nation, which by a
fortunate circumstance it has at its disposal, the principal resources
that are necessary for it. Lastly, it is requisite to extend among our
artists the knowledge of the advancement of the arts and that of
machines, whose object is either to diminish manual labour or to give to
the result of labour more uniformity and precision; and on those heads
it must be confessed we have much