In 1755 lie was sent to London as secretary to the French embassy, and was chosen a member of the Royal Society. In 1756 he went to Canada as captain of dragoons and aide-de-camp to the marquis of Montcalm ; and having distinguished himself in the war against England, was rewarded with the rank of colonel and the cross of St Louis. He afterwards served in the Seven Years War from 17C1 to 17G3. After the peace, when the French Govern ment conceived the project of colonizing the Falkland Islands, Bougainville undertook the task at his own expense. But the settlement having excited the jealousy of the Spaniards, the French Government gave it up to them, on condition of their indemnifying Bougainville. He was then appointed to the command of the frigate " La Boudeuse " and the transport " L Etoile," on a voyage of discovery round the world. He set sail from Nantes in November 17GG, taking with him Commercon as naturalist, and Verron as astronomer. Having executed his commission of delivering up the Falkland Islands to the Spanish, Bougainville proceeded on his expedition, and touched at Buenos Ayres. Passing through the Straits of Magellan, he anchored at Otaheitc, where the English navigator Wallis had touched eight months before. The expedition having crossed the Pacific Ocean, and the men now suffering from scurvy, the ships came to anchor off the Island of Borou, one of the Moluccas, where the governor of the Dutch settlement supplied their wants. It was the beginning of September, and the expedition took advantage of the easterly monsoon, which carried them to Batavia. Thence they proceeded to the Isle of France, where they left Commergon and Verron. In 1769 the expedition arrived at St Malo, after a voyage of two years and four months, with the loss of only seven out of upwards of 200 men. Bougainville s account of the voyage (Paris, 1771, 4to) is written with simplicity and with some humour. The art of making astronomical observations at sea was then much less perfect than now, and, consequently, Bougainville s charts are found to be erroneous, particularly as to the longitudes. After an interval of several years, he again accepted a naval command and saw much active service between 1779 and 1782. In the memorable engagement of April 12, 1782, in which Rodney defeated the Count de Grasse, near Martinique, Bougainville, who commanded the " Auguste," succeeded in rallying eight ships of his own division, and bringing them safely into St Eustace. After the peace he returned to Paris, and solicited and obtained the place of associate of the Academy. He pro jected a voyage of discovery towards the north pole, but this did not meet with support from the French Government. Bougainville obtained the rank of vice-admiral in 1791 ; and in 1792, having escaped almost miraculously from the massacres of Paris, he retired to his estate in Normandy. He was chosen a member of the Institute at its formation ; and then returning to Paris succeeded Borda as member of the Board of Longitude. In his old age Napoleon I. made him a senator, count of the empire, and member of the Legion of Honour. He died at Paris, August, 31, 1814. lie was married and had three sons, who served in the 1 rench army. His eloge, composed by Delambre, appears
in the Memoirs of the Institute.BOUGIE, or Bougiah, a fortified seaport town of Algeria, in the province of Constantine and arrondissemerit of Se tif, betweeen Cape Carbon and the Wady-Sahell. Among its more important buildings are the French church, the hospital, the barracks, the magazines, and the Abd- 1-Kader fort, now used as a prison. Trade is carried on in wax, grain, oranges, oil, and wine. A basin was constructed about 1870 in the anchorage below the town. The popula tion in 1872 was 2820, of whom 1 134 were natives. Bougie, Bugia, or Bugiah is a town of great antiquity. If it is correctly identified with the Salda of the Romans it pro bably owes its origin to the Carthaginians. Genseric, the king of the Vandals, surrounded it with walls and chose it as his capital for some time; and in the 10th century it became, under the Beni-Hammad, the greatest com mcrcial city of the North African coast. The Italian merchants of the 12th and 13th centuries had numerous buildings of their own in the city, such as warehouses, baths, and churches. It became a haunt of pirates in the 15th century, and in the beginning of the IGth it was captured by the Spaniards, from whom it was taken by the Turks in 1555. It was a place of little importance when it fell into French possession about 1833.
BOUGUER, Pierre, an eminent French mathematician, was born in 1 G98. His father, one of the best hydro- graphers of his time, was regius professor of hydrography at Croisic in Lower Britanny, and author of an excellent treatise on navigation. Young Bouguer was bred to mathe matics from his infancy, and at an early age was appointed to succeed his father as professor of hydrography. In 1727 he gained the prize given by the Academy of Sciences for his paper " On the best manner of forming and distri buting the Masts of Ships;" and two other prizes, one for his dissertation " On the best method of observing the Altitude of Stars at Sea," the other for his paper " On the best method of observing the Variation of the Compass at Sea." These are published in the Prix de VAcadcmie des Sciences. In 1729 he published Essai d optique sur la gradation de la lumiere, the object of which is to define the quantity of light lost by passing through a given extent of the atmosphere. He found the light of the sun to be 300 times more intense than that of the moon. He was soon after made professor of hydrography at Havre, and succeeded Maupertuis as associate geometer of the Academy of Sciences. He was afterwards promoted in the Academy to the place of pensioned astronomer, and went to reside in Paris. In 1735 Bouguer sailed with Godin and De la Condamine for Peru, in order to measure a degree of the meridian near the equator. Ten years were spent in this operation, a full account of which was published by Bouguer in 1749, Figure de la Ti-rre determinee. His later writings were nearly all upon the theory of navigation. He died in 1758.
The following is a list of liis principal works : Traife cVoptique sur la gradation de la lumiere, 1729 and 17(50 ; Entreticns sur la cause d inclinaison dcs orlites dcs jrtaneics, 1734; Traitt de na- virc, d:c., 1746, 4to ; La Figure de la terre determinee, &c., 1749, 4to ; Nouveau tmiti de navigation, contcnant la theorie ct la pra tique da pilotage, 1753 ; Solution des principaux problcmcs sur la manoeuvre des Vaisseaux, 1757; Operations faites pour la verifica tion du dcgre dumeridien cntre Paris ct Amiens ; par Mess. 15ou- guer, Camus, Cassiui, et Fiugre, 1757.
at Paris in 1G28. He entered the Society of the Jesuits at the age of sixteen, and was appointed to read lectures on literature in the college of Clermont at Paris, and on rhetoric at Tours. He afterwards became preceptor to the two sons of the duke of Longueville. The duke died in Bouhours s arms ; and the " account of the pious and Christian death" of this great personage was his first publication. He was sent to Dunkirk to the Romanist refugees from England, and in the midst of his missionary occupations published several books. Among these were Les Entretiens d A riste et d Eugene, a work of a critical nature on the French language, printed five times at Paris, twice at Grenoble, and afterwards at Lyons, Brussels, Amster dam. Leyden, &c. It involved him in numerous quarrels, particularly with Manage, who, however, continued to live on friendly terms with the author. The fame and merit of this piece recommended Bouhours BO effectually to the
great Colbert, that he intrusted him with the education of