Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet, a Belgian statistician, born in Ghent, Feb. 22, 1796, died in Brussels, Feb. 17, 1874. When scarcely 18 years old he was appointed professor of mathematics in his native town, and five years later at the Athenaeum in Brussels. In 1824 the king of the Netherlands sent him to Paris to complete his astronomical studies; and on his return in 1826, he was charged with superintending the building of an observatory, of which he was director until his death. Between 1827 and 1829 he visited England, Scotland, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. He was perpetual secretary of the academy of sciences of Belgium, president of the central statistical committee, and corresponding member of the French institute. His most important publications are: Recherches sur la réproduction et la mortalité et sur la population de la Belgique (1832); De l'injluence des saisons sur la mortalité aux différents âges (18.38); Sur la théorie des probability appliquées aux sciences morales et politiques (1846); Du sys-tème social et des lois que le régissent (1848); Sur la statistique morale et les principes qui doivent en former la base (1848); and Anthro-pométrie (1873). From 1833 he published an Annuaire de l'observatoire de Bruxelles.