a misfortune is mine, God! If I had lost two young foals, at least their hides would have been left to me."
And the children, standing by the open grave of their father, cry out: "O father, we shall never forget thee! Take our thanks for all the benefits received during thy lifetime, as well as for the earthly goods thou hast left behind."—Blackwood's Magazine.
| SKETCH OF JULES JAMIN. |
M. JULES JAMIN was a man of many talents. He held a high position in the scientific circles of his time, and was equally eminent as a teacher and lecturer; he was also well known in literature; and he achieved respectable success in some of the fine arts. He was able to acquit himself creditably in all this variety in occupations, without sacrificing the excellence of his scientific work; and it is on the last that his fame is founded.
Jules Célestin Jamin was born at Termes in the Ardennes, August 30, 1818, and died in Paris, February 12, 1886. His father had served in the volunteers of the French Revolution, had gained the rank of captain, and had been decorated at the battle of Friedland. The boy was taught in the village school of Vouziers, and afterward in the college at Rheims, where he gained nine prizes in the first year, and received in 1838 the prize of honor in the competition between the colleges of Paris and the departments. In the same year he entered the Superior Normal School, and in 1841 received the first prize in the examinations of physics. From this institution he went to the college at Caen as a teacher of Physics; afterward to the Collége Bourbon (now Lycée Condorcet), and in 1844 to the Collége Louis-le-Grand. In 1847 he received the doctorate of Physical Science for a thesis on the reflection of light by the surface of metals.
The precision, elegance, and solidity of his instruction, say Jamin's foreign biographers, and the value of his scientific work, designated him for some superior professorship. So, in 1852, he was elected Professor of Physics at the Polytechnic School, where he lectured with success till 1881. In 1863 he obtained the chair of Physics in the Faculty of Sciences, where, by the extreme lucidity of his demonstrations, he achieved a great success. When M. Duruy, the Minister of Instruction at the time, founded the public lectures of the Sorbonne, he committed the inauguration of the course to M. Jamin; and the opening was, according to M. Jurien de la Gravière's eulogy in the Academy of Sciences, an event which "aroused the enthusiasm of the multitude." Here Jamin attracted a great number of eager listeners, and displayed, says "Nature," his admirable talent of exposition, as well as his great power of simplifying the most difficult questions,
