SAINTE-CLAIRE DEVILLE, HENRI ETIENNE, French chemist, was b. Mar., 1818, at St. Thomas, West Indies, and was educated in France. On quitting college, he con structed at his own cost a chemical laboratory, and for nine years, without master and without pupils, devoted himself to patient studies and skillful researches. In 1844 he was commissioned to organize the faculty of sciences of Besancon. of which, in the fol lowing year. he was appointed dean and professor. In 1851 he succeeded M.. Balard in the chair of chemistry in the eeole normale. Since 1853 he has supplied the place of 31. Dumas in the faculty of sciences of Paris. In 1861 he was chosen a member of the, academy of sciences of the institute, in place of X. Berthier in the section of mineralogy.
Sainte-Claire Deville's earliest investigations relate to different essences and resins, and the most important are in the department of mineral chemistry. In 1849 lie made known the mode of preparation and the properties of anhydrous nitric acid, a compound whose existence had been up to that date ignored. In 1852 he published an important paper' on metallic carbonates and their combinations; and in the following year, a new method of mineral analysis, known as the middle way, in which lie proposes the exclusive employment of gases and volatile reagents, against the errors arising from the use of the filter.
About the same time be began his researches into aluminium, a metal discovered in 1827 by Wohler of Gottingen, but still very imperfectly known, and set forth its special properties. Being commissioned by Louis Napoleon to seek the best method of obtain ing aluminium at a low price, he made numerous experiments, jointly with M. Debray, in the factory at Jaye]; and, after sonic months, succeeded in producing ingots of the metal, which were shown in the exposition universelle of 1855. These experiments, and the properties of aluminium, have been described by Sainte-Claire Deville in scientific periodicals; and among his later papers are—on the "Three Molecular States of Sili cium;" on the "Metallurgy of Platina ;" on the "Density of Vapors at very High Tem peratures;" on the "Measurement of High Temperatures•" on the "Permeability of Iron to Gases at a High Temperature;" on the "Phenomena of Dissociation in Homo genous Flames;" and on the "Industrial Preparation of Alumium and its Compounds." These papers are published in the Ml emoires and Comptes Rendus of the academie des sciences de I'institut, and in 'the Annales de Chimie et de Physique.