MARION BRÉSILLAC, MELCHIOR-MARIE-JOSEPH DE

MARION BRÉSILLAC, MELCHIOR-MARIE-JOSEPH de. - Missionary, founder of the Society of African Missions, b. at Castelnaudary (Aude) on 2 Dec. 1813, d. at Freetown (Sierra Leone) on 25 June 1859.

Ordained priest in 1838, he entered the Paris Seminary of Foreign Missions on 2 June 1841 and, having left for India in 1842, was elected there in 1845 titular bishop of Prusa and apostolic provicar of Coimbatore. In 1854 he turned his thoughts to the abandoned peoples of Africa and was authorized by the Holy See to found a new Congregation for that purpose; thus, in 1856, after many sacrifices and disappointments, the Seminary of African Missions arose at Lyons. Appointed apostolic vicar of Sierra Leone in 1858, he landed there on 14 May 1859; but he already fell on the

Otto de Guericke (1654), on atmospheric pressure and gases, carried out many experiments which he described in the Essai sur la nature de l'air (Digione 1676). He discovered the law which today bears the names of Boyle and M.: a gas assumes a volume inversely proportional to the pressure. He published a Traité de la percussion ou choc des corps (1676) and a Traité du mouvement des eaux et des autres corps fluides (La Hire 1686, posthumous). The “M. bottle” is still used in chemical laboratories. He was one of the first members of the Académie des Sciences founded by the minister Colbert in 1664-66. The collection of his numerous writings was published at Leida in 1717 and at L'Aia in 1740.