M. Paul Henri

Abstract

A BOUT the year 1864, two brothers entered the meteorological department of the Paris Observatory, and for nearly forty years laboured with zeal and success to promote the best interests of that institution and of astronomical science generally. In the autumn of 1903, one brother, M. Prosper Henri, died suddenly on a holiday tour, and we now have the melancholy duty of chronicling the death of the second brother, M. Paul Henri. It is necessary to recall the close and intimate relations that existed between these two, because the scientific life of one was that of the other. No one has ever thought of them separately, no one has ever attempted to discriminate between their successes and their triumphs. The same day (November 8, 1889) they were both elected associates of the Royal Astronomical Society, and other instances of similar recognition of their united work might be quoted. We may quote the words of the late M. Callandreau of these two:—“si unis que nous ne voyons souvent en eux qu' une seule personne pour ainsi dire, si oublieux de faire ressortir leur mérites respectifs qu' il est difficile de distinguer ce qui peut appartenir a chacun dans l'œuvre commune.”