This accident, which for a moment compromised the legitimate success the celebrated engineer expected, thus suggested to him a fruitful idea which he did not forget.

He subsequently repeated attempts to thus utilise the earth and water, and obtained some very remarkable results.
It is not possible to quote here all the researches undertaken with the same purpose, to which are more particularly attached the names of S.W.Wilkins, Wheatstone, and H.Highton, in England; of Bonetti in Italy, Gintl in Austria, Bouchot and Donat in France; but there are some which cannot be recalled without emotion.
On the 17th December 1870, a physicist who has left in the University of Paris a lasting name, M.d'Almeida, at that time Professor at the Lycee Henri IV.

and later Inspector-General of Public Instruction, quitted Paris, then besieged, in a balloon, and descended in the midst of the German lines.

He succeeded, after a perilous journey, in gaining Havre by way of Bordeaux and Lyons; and after procuring the necessary apparatus in England, he descended the Seine as far as Poissy, which he reached on the 14th January 1871.

After his departure, two other scholars, MM.