WILHELM HEINRICH [

GUILLAUME

See also:

• HENRI

HENRI]

See also:

• WILHELM HEINRICH [GUILLAUME HENRI] DUFOUR (1787–1875)

DUFOUR (1787–1875)  , Swiss general, was born at Constance of Genevese parents temporarily in exile, 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 instructor in the military school of Thun, which had been founded mainly through his instrumentality . Among other distinguished foreign pupils he instructed Louis Napoleon, afterwards emperor of the French . In 1827 he was raised to the rank of colonel, and commanded the Federal army in a series of field manoeuvres . In 1831 he became chief 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 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 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 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 (1792–1857), 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 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 (r823–1836) . Five years (1836–1841) were spent in writing the text to accompany the map, the publication of the work with two quarto vols. of text extending from 1841–1848; 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 (3 vols. and atlas, 1844–1845; 2nd ed., 4 vols. and atlas, 1856–1859), 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 of the Legion of Honour, and an inspector-general of mines . He died in Paris on the loth of March 1857 .