It is an accepted opinion [among some people] that the Academy constitutes the central point, to which all discoveries and inventions from the entire world converge as soon as they are made. These discoveries will take the trouble to come to us to verify their authenticity and it is only after being supplied with a passport, signed by us, that they can decently circulate in the republic of science.

The title of associé étranger is reserved for those scientists who, from all countries except France and in all the sciences which the Academy studies, have reached the first rank. By this happy association the Academy is in a way universal, and the history of all the great discoveries, with which the sciences have been enriched since its foundation, belongs to its own history.

I bequeathe to the Academy of Sciences the sum of 20,000f., the interest from which will be given every two years as the Delalande-Guérineau prize to the French explorer or scientist, who has rendered the greatest service to France or to science.