Jean-Baptiste-Andre Dumas was born at Alais, in the south of France, July 14, 1800. His father belonged to an ancient family, was a man of culture, and held the position as clerk to the municipality of Alais. The son was educated at the college of his native place, and appears to have been destined by his parents for the naval service. But the anarchy and bloodshed which attended the downfall of the First Empire produced such an aversion to a military life that his parents abandoned their plan, and apprenticed him to an apothecary of the town. He remained in this situation, however, but a short time; for, owing to the same sad causes, he had formed an earnest desire to leave his home, and, his parents yielding to his wish, he traveled on foot to Geneva in 1816, where he had relatives who gave him a friendly welcome, and where he found employment in the pharmacy of Le Royer. [K] Reprinted from the Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, vol. xix, 1883-'84. At that time Geneva was the center of much scientific activity, and young Dumas, while discharging his duties in the pharmacy, had the opportunity of attending lectures on botany by M. de Candolle, on physics by M. Pictet, and on chemistry by M. Gaspard de la Rive; and from these lectures he acquired an earnest zeal for scientific investigation. The laboratory of the pharmacy gave him the necessary opportunities for experimenting, and an observation which he made of the definite proportions of water contained in various commercial salts, although yielding no new results, gained for him the attention and friendship of De la Rive. Soon after we find the young philosopher attempting to deduce the volumes of the atoms in solid and liquid bodies by carefully determining their specific gravities, and thus anticipating a method which thirty years later was more fully developed by Hermann Kopp. About this time young Dumas had the good fortune to render an important service to one of the most distinguished physicians of Geneva, whose name is associated with the beneficial uses of iodine in cases of goitre. It had occurred to Dr. Coindet that burned sponge, then generally used as a remedy for that disease, might owe its efficacy to the presence of a small amount of iodine; and on referring the question to Dumas, the young chemist not only proved the presence of iodine in the sponge, but also indicated the best method of administering what proved to be almost a specific remedy. It was in connection with this investigation that Dumas's name first appears in public. The discovery produced a great sensation, and for many years the manufacture of iodine preparations brought both wealth and reputation to the pharmacy of Le Royer.