Charles Adolphe Wurtz

Charles Adolphe Wurtz , 1817-84, French chemist. He was professor at the Sorbonne (1852-75), at the Faculty of Medicine, Paris (1853-75), and at the Faculty of Sciences, Paris (from 1875). Noted for his research in organic chemistry, he discovered methyl and ethyl amines (1849), glycol (1856), and aldol condensation (1872). He developed (1855) a method of synthesizing hydrocarbons by treating alkyl halides with sodium (Wurtz reaction) that was adapted by the German chemist Rudolf Fittig to the preparation of mixed aliphatic and aromatic hydrocarbons (Wurtz-Fittig reaction). Wurtz also invented a bulbed fractionating column known as the Wurtz column. He wrote influential works in support of the atomic theory and on medical and biological chemistry and the noted Dictionaire de chimie pure et appliquée (3 vol., 1868-78; supplement, 1880-86).

Alphand, Jean-Charles-Adolphe (1817–91). French landscape-architect and civil engineer. Under Haussmann Alphand, with Jean-Pierre Barillet-Deschamps (1824–75), carried out numerous schemes for laying out straight avenues, and designed many public gardens and parks, including those of the Bois de Boulogne (1854), Bois de Vincennes (1860), Monceau (1862), Buttes-Chaumont (1864–9), and Montsouris (1869). Of these, Buttes-Chaumont was the most elaborate, with a lake, streams, a waterfall, and artificial grottoes. With Barillet-Deschamps and É. -F. André, he created the botanic gardens at La Muette (1860—moved to Boulogne in 1895), and in 1867 became supervisor of the public ways of Paris. After 1871 he was put in charge of all public works, which included the cemeteries (e.g. Bagneux of 1886). He oversaw the layouts and landscaping of the International Exhibitions in Paris in 1867, 1878, and 1889.

Bibliography

W. Robinson (1869);
Jane Turner (1996)