DUFOUR, WILHELM HEINRICH [GUILLAUME HENRI] (17871875)

This article appears in Volume V08, Page 646 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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DUFOUR, WILHELM HEINRICH [GUILLAUME HENRI] (17871875) , Swiss general, was born at Constance of Genevese parents temporarily in

exile

EXILE (Lat. exsilium or exilium, from exsul or exul, which is derived from ex, out of, and the root sal, to go, seen in salire, to leap,
consul
- CONSUL
- CONSUL (in Gr. generally ihraros,ashortened form of errpavgybs 8hraeos, i.e. praetor maximus)
, &c.; the connexion with solum, soil, country is now generally considered wrong)

, on the 15th of September 1787. In 1807 he went to the Ecole Polytechnique at Paris, Switzerland being then under French rule, taking the 14oth place only in his entrance examination. By two years' close study he so greatly improved his position that he was ranked fifth in the exit examination. Immediately on leaving the school he received a commission in the engineers, and was sent to serve in Corfu, which was blockaded by the English. During the Hundred Days he attained the rank of captian, and was employed in raising fortifications at Grenoble. After the peace that followed Waterloo he resumed his status as a Swiss citizen, and devoted himself to the military service of his native land. From 1819 to 1830 he was

chief

CHIEF (from Fr. chef, head, Lat. caput)

instructor in the military school of Thun, which had been founded mainly through his instrumentality. Among other distinguished foreign pupils he instructed Louis

Napoleon

NAPOLEON

, afterwards emperor of the French. In 1827 he was raised to the rank of colonel, and commanded the Federal army in a

series

SERIES (a Latin word from serere, to join)

of field manoeuvres. In 1831 he became

chief

CHIEF (from Fr. chef, head, Lat. caput)

of the staff, and soon afterwards he was appointed quartermaster-general. Two years later the diet commissioned him to superintend the execution of a complete trigonometrical survey of Switzerland. He had already made a cadastral survey of the canton of Geneva, and published a map of the canton on the scale of 15 00. The larger

work

WORK

occupied thirty-two years, and was accomplished with complete success. Themap in 25 sheets on the scale of , o aaoa was published at intervals between 1842 and 1865, and is an admirable specimen of cartography. In recognition of the ability with which Dufour had carried out his task, the Federal Council in 1868 ordered the highest peak of Monte Rosa to be named Dufour Spitze. In 1847 Dufour was made general of the Federal Army, which was employed in reducing the revolted Catholic cantons. The quickness and thoroughness with which he performed the painful task, and the wise moderation with which he treated his vanquished fellow-countrymen, were acknowledged by a

gift

GIFT (a common Teutonic word, cf. Ger. die Gift, gift, das Gift, poison, formed from the Teut. stem gab-, to give, cf. Dutch geven, Ger. geben; in O. Eng. the word appears with initial y, the guttural of later English is due to Scandinavian influence)

of 6o,000 francs from the diet and various honours from different cities and cantons of the confederaton. In politics he belonged to the moderate conservative party, and he consequently lost a good deal of his popularity in 1848. In 1864 he presided over the international conference which framed the Geneva Convention as to the treatment of the wounded in time of war, &c. He died on the 14th of July 1875. His De la fortification permanente (185o) is an important and

original

ORIGINAL

contribution to the science of fortification, and he was also the author of a Memoire sur l'artillerie des anciens et sur celle du moyen dge (184o), Manuel de tactique pour les officiers de toutes acmes (1842), and various other works in military science. His memoir, La Campagne du Sonderbund (Paris, 1876), is prefaced by a biographical notice. An equestrian statue of General Dufour was erected after his death at Geneva by national subscription.
DUFR$NOY, OURS PIERRE ARMAND PETIT (17921857), French geologist and mineralogist, was born at Sevran, in the department of Seine-et-Oise, in France, on the 5th of September 1792. After leaving the Imperial Lyceum, in 1811, he studied till 1813 at the Ecole Polytechnique, and then entered the Corps des Mines. He subsequently assisted in the management of the Dcole des Mines, of which he was professor of

mineralogy

MINERALOGY

and afterwards director. He was also professor of geology at the 1 cole des Ponts et Chausses. In conjunction with Elie de Beaumont he in 1841 published a great geological map of France, the result of investigations carried on during thirteen years (r8231836). Five years (18361841) were spent in writing the text to accompany the map, the publication of the

work

WORK

with two quarto vols. of text extending from 18411848; a third volume was issued in 1873. The two authors had already together published Voyage metallurgique en Angleterre (1827, 2nd ed. 1837-1839),Memoires pour servir d une description geologique de la France, in four vols. (183o-1838), and a Memoire on Cantal and Mont-Dore (1833). Other literary productions of Dufrenoy are an account of the iron mines of the eastern Pyrenees (1834), and a treatise on

mineralogy

MINERALOGY

(3 vols. and atlas, 18441845; 2nd ed., 4 vols. and atlas, 18561859), in which the geological relations as well as the physical and chemical properties of minerals were dealt with; he likewise contributed numerous papers to the Annales des mines and other scientific publications, one of the most interesting of which is entitled Des terrains volcaniques des environs de Naples. Dufrenoy was a member of the Academy of Sciences, a

commander

COMMANDER

of the Legion of Honour, and an inspector-general of mines. He died in Paris on the loth of March 1857.

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