Bache, ALEXANDER DALLAS

Bache, ALEXANDER DALLAS, American physicist, a grandson of Benjamin Franklin, was born at Philadelphia, 19th July 1806, and in 1821 entered West Point military academy. He was appointed professor of Mathematics in the university of Pennsylvania (1827), president of Girard College (1836), and superintendent of the coast survey (1843), in which last capacity he did good service to science. He was author of Observations at Girard College (3 vols. 1840-47) and Lectures on Switzerland (1870), the latter a posthumous work, as he died at Newport, Rhode Island, 17th February 1867.