REAUDIUR, rfiVinue, IIENE ANTOINE FER MAT:LT DE ( 1683-1757). A French naturalist and physicist, born in La Rochelle, Feb ruary 28, 1633. He was educated in the Jesuits' College at Poitiers and at Bourges, and in 1703 he went to Paris, where he continued the study of physics and mathematics. His earliest publi cations were mathematical and obtained him an election to the Academie des Sciences in 170S. Ile then interested himself in the study of ma rine animals; he proved the power of regenera tion in crustaceans, studied locomotion in star fishes, showed that zoophytes were animals, studied the action of the electrical organ of tor pedo and the phosphorescence of marine ani mals. In 1710 he began to compile a large work for the Government, Description de divers arts et metiers. Somewhat later a series of important memoirs ou the production of steel and on im provements in the manufacture of iron won him a yearly pension of 12.000 livres. He discovered
the method of tinning iron; studied the produc tion of fine porcelain; also the condition of forests, mines, auriferous rivers, and the fossil beds of France. He invented the Reaumur ther mometer. in which for the first time the zero point was made to coincide with the freezing point. (See TUERMOMETER.) Amid all these ac tivities Reaumnm• was constantly carrying on his investigations in the field of natural history. The most important of all his publications are his works in this department ; of these the great est is Memoires pour scr•rir ri l'histoire des in sectes (6 vols., 1737-1748). lie left materials for a history of quadrupeds and birds afterwards made use of by Brisson and Buffon.