in 1857, captain in 1860, major of cavalry in 1874, lieutenant-colonel
in 1879, he received a year before his death the stars of
brigadier-general. He was commander of the Legion of Honor and
president of the council-general of his department.

General Perrier long ago made a name for himself in science. After
some remarkable publications upon the trigonometrical junction of
France and England (1861) and upon the triangulation and leveling of
Corsica (1865), he was put at the head of the geodesic service of the
army in 1879. In 1880, the learned geodesian was sent as a delegate to
the conference of Berlin for settling the boundaries of the new
Greco-Turkish frontiers. In January of the same year, he was elected a
member of the Academy of Sciences, as successor to M. De Tessan. He
was a member of the bureau of longitudes from 1875.

In 1882, Perrier was sent to Florida to observe the transit of Venus.
Thanks to his activity and ability, his observations were a complete
success. Thenceforward, his celebrity continued to increase until his
last triangulating operations in Algeria.

[Illustration: GENERAL FRANCOIS PERRIER.]

"Do you not remember," said Mr. Janssen recently to the Academy of
Sciences, "the feeling of satisfaction that the whole country felt
when it learned the entire success of that grand geodesic operation
that united Spain with our Algeria over the Mediterranean, and passed
through France a meridian arc extending from the north of England as
far as to the Sahara, that is to say, an arc exceeding in length the
greatest arcs that had been measured up till then? This splendid
result attracted all minds, and rendered Perrier's name popular. But