Henri-Louis Duhamel du Monceau

Henri-Louis Duhamel du Monceau (; 20 July 170013 August 1782) was a French physicist, naval engineer and botanist.

Having learned from Sir Hans Sloane that madder possesses the property of giving colour to the bones, he fed animals successively on food mixed and unmixed with madder; and he found that their bones in general exhibited concentric strata of red and white, while the softer parts showed in the meantime signs of having been progressively extended.

Meteorological observations From the year 1740 on he made meteorological observations, and kept records of the influence of the weather on agricultural production. For many years he was inspector-general of the marine, and applied his scientific experience to the improvement of naval construction. - Denis Diderot, 1767.

Diderot seems to forget his debt to Duhamel du Monceau for the Encyclopédie, including the articles "Agriculture," "Rope," "Pipe" and "Sugar."

The succession of Jean-Paul Grandjean de Fouchy, perpetual secretary of the Academy of Sciences, clash sees supporters of Condorcet, led by d'Alembert, and those of the astronomer Bailly, led by Count de Buffon. In 1773, the appointment of Condorcet as deputy Grandjean de Fouchy sees the triumph of the party of the philosophers against the use of naval officers linked to Duhamel.

But in January 1775, supporters of Bailly, including Patrick D'Arcy and Jean-Charles de Borda, both naval officers make up a commission to monitor the work of the Secretary, that Condorcet considered censorship. To be elected, he must give up the pension ECU 1000 and submit an application in proper form to respect the rules of Académie2. Condorcet would later refer to this episode:

"Though he loved many innovations in science and devoted his life to introduce useful ones in the arts, he didn't like them in politics and even less in the statutes of the academies" - Marquis de Condorcet, 1783

Memory Asteroid 100231 Monceau, discovered by astronomer Eric Walter Elst at the La Silla Observatory in 1994, was named in his memory.

Histoire d'un insecte qui devore les grains de l'Angoumois, with Mathieu Tillet, published by H. L. Guérin & L. F. Delatour, Paris, 1762

Traité de l'exploitation des bois, 1764 Traité de la garance, et de sa culture, 1765 Traité du transport des bois et de leur conservation, 1767 Traité des arbres fruitiers. 1768 Traité géneral des pêches, 1769