Abstract
ON March 16 there passed out of the scientific life of Paris a great figure and one whose scientific writings have been read by mineralogists and geologists the world over for the past sixty years. Francois Antoine Alfred Lacroix, ‘secrétaire perpetuel' of the Paris Academy of Sciences for thirty-four years and professor of mineralogy at the National Museum of Natural History during 1893–1936, was born at Macon on February 4, 1863, and died in Paris on March 16. He studied at the lycée of his native town, at the Sorbonne, and at the Collège de France. He commenced to study pharmacy but soon was attracted to geology and mineralogy, and in 1887 was appointed ‘préparateur' at the Collège de France and a collaborator on the French Geological Survey. Before he was thirty he succeeded Des Cloizeaux as professor of mineralogy at the Natural History Museum. He added many fine specimens of minerals and a superb collection of rocks to the Museum collections. In this he Was assisted by many of his pupils, mining engineers and government officials in France‘s overseas possessions who, catching the enthusiasm of the master for his science, seem to have been ever ready to gather materials for his scientific work and for the national collections.
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SMITH, W. Prof. F. A. A. Lacroix. Nature 161, 962–963 (1948). https://doi.org/10.1038/161962a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/161962a0