Background
Alfred Lacroix was born Antoine François Alfred Lacroix on February 4, 1863, in Macon, France. His grandfather, Tony, and father, Francisque, were Paris-trained pharmacists; his grandfather’s avocation was mineralogy.
Sorbonne University, Paris, France
When he was twenty, Lacroix went to Paris to earn a pharmacist’s diploma. Concurrently he attended courses in mineralogy at the Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle, where his advanced knowledge came to the attention of his professors, F. Fouqué and A. des Cloizeaux. Recognizing his interest and natural ability, they made funds available to enable him to visit classic localities and collections in Europe.
1917
Lacroix was awarded the Wollaston Medal in 1917.
1930
Lacroix was awarded the Penrose Medal in 1930.
Sorbonne University, Paris, France
When he was twenty, Lacroix went to Paris to earn a pharmacist’s diploma. Concurrently he attended courses in mineralogy at the Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle, where his advanced knowledge came to the attention of his professors, F. Fouqué and A. des Cloizeaux. Recognizing his interest and natural ability, they made funds available to enable him to visit classic localities and collections in Europe.
Photo of Alfred Lacroix.
Alfred Lacroix at work.
Alfred Lacroix at work.
Royal Society, London, England
Lacroix was a member of the Royal Society.
French Academy of Sciences, Paris, France
Lacroix was a member of the French Academy of Sciences.
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm, Sweden
Lacroix was a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
Academy of Sciences of Turin, Turin, Italy
Lacroix was a member of the Academy of Sciences of Turin.
National Academy of Sciences, Washington, District of Columbia, United States
Lacroix was a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences.
educator geologist mineralogist scientist
Alfred Lacroix was born Antoine François Alfred Lacroix on February 4, 1863, in Macon, France. His grandfather, Tony, and father, Francisque, were Paris-trained pharmacists; his grandfather’s avocation was mineralogy.
When he was twenty, Lacroix went to Paris to earn a pharmacist’s diploma. Concurrently he attended courses in mineralogy at the Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle, where his advanced knowledge came to the attention of his professors, F. Fouqué and A. des Cloizeaux. Recognizing his interest and natural ability, they made funds available to enable him to visit classic localities and collections in Europe. Lacroix received his doctorate on May 31, 1889.
After receiving the diploma in pharmacy in 1887, Lacroix chose to follow mineralogy and was appointed an assistant to Fouqué, a post he held while earning his doctorate. On April 1, 1893, Lacroix was named to succeed des Cloizeaux in the chair of mineralogy at the museum, a position he held until his official retirement on October 1, 1936. He continued a full schedule of work at his laboratory, walking there each day until four days before his death at the age of eighty-five.
Lacroix early realized the importance to research of an excellent mineral collection, and for fifty years one of his undeviating aims was to build up a systematic collection from around the world. As a corollary, he envisaged an inventory of the minerals of France and its overseas possessions. He drew on acquaintances made during his early travels for exchange of specimens; he asked French colleagues in other sciences to collect while abroad; even administrators of French colonies found themselves collecting for Lacroix. This was particularly true of General Joseph Gallieni and his officers on Madagascar, which had come under French rule in 1895; they received detailed instructions for methodical collecting and responded so effectively that Lacroix visited the island in 1911 and undertook the detailed study that led to the publication of Minéralogie de Madagascar, a three-volume mine of information that has not been superseded. In like manner, a systematic inventory of the minerals and rocks of the French volcanic islands of the South Pacific was completed and led to the recognition of two distinct petrologic domains characterized by mesocratic and melanocratic basalts.
Following in the footsteps of Fouqué, Lacroix made volcanology and volcanic rocks one of his specialties. These studies began in 1890; in May 1902 there was a major eruption on the French island of Martinique in the Caribbean. Appointed by the Académie des Sciences to head a mission to study the volcanism, Lacroix spent six months sending back a stream of letters which appeared in the Academy's Comptes rendus. These portended the vigorous exposition that he later published of the nuée ardente, or glowing cloud type of eruption, which he alone, of all the observers of Mt. Pelée, was perceptive enough to recognize as a newly observed phenomenon. First suggested by Fouqué in 1873, on the basis of tales of earlier eruptions in the Azores, an eruption of that type had never been witnessed by a scientist. Subsequent nuée ardente eruptions have been recorded on Martinique and in other active volcanic areas; and the term, in the French form, has been accepted and used throughout the world. Lacroix also derived new evidence on the origin and behavior of volcanic domes. The results of his observations and investigations are in the two-volume La montagne Pelée.
But this was not the only volcanic “poussée” to which Lacroix responded. Up to 1914, he was an eyewitness to outbursts of Vesuvius, which was then in almost constant eruption, of Etna, and of other volcanoes. His other travels were to study minerals in their natural settings in order to supplement his laboratory determinations. Lacroix had a broad interpretation of mineralogy, believing that the study of minerals should not be an end in itself but a means of learning their origins and relations to the rocks in which they occur, the structure of the rocks, and the entire terrain. Mineralogy as a point of union of chemistry, physics, mathematics, and natural history could make use of the techniques of those disciplines; but it should not be separated from geology or geophysics. Being on the scene when mineralogy was in transition from a purely descriptive to an interpretive science, Lacroix was a brilliant exponent of the new trend.
Lacroix was named secrétaire perpétuel of the Académie des Sciences on June 8, 1914. He reorganized the secretariat, enriched the archives, and lent needed support to an inventory of scientific materials in Paris libraries. Giving full play to his interest in the history of science and scientists, and with a wealth of facts at hand, he produced a series of biographies of French scientists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Written in a clear, fluent narrative style, they rank with the best in literature.
Lacroix was a member of the Royal Society, the French Academy of Sciences, the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Academy of Sciences of Turin, and the United States National Academy of Sciences.
A kindly man of simple tastes who shunned any form of ostentation, Lacroix had the gift of creating an aura of goodwill among his students and colleagues.
In 1889 Lacroix married Catherine, the eldest of F. Fouqué's daughters.