Malus, Étienne-Louis, French officer, engineer, physicist, and mathematician (1775-1812). Manuscript signed ("Malus").

Gizeh, Thermidor An 8 [July-August, 1799].

Folio. 1½ pp.

 2,500.00

List of expenses for work performed by the French army in Giza and on Roda island located on the Nile in Cairo. A summary of fortification and building costs with the corresponding budgets certified and signed by Malus. The total cost amounted to 101,782 francs.

Written shortly before Napoleon's unexpected departure from Egypt, the list bears witness to the extensive French building campaign during the Egyptian expedition (1798-1801).

Étienne-Louis Malus was trained to become a military engineer at the École royale du génie de Mézières and the École Polytechnique in Paris. In 1796 he joined the Engineers Corps of the revolutionary army and quickly ascended the ranks. His official scientific carrier started during the Egyptian campaign when he became a member of the newly founded Institut d'Égypte. Malus' mathematical work was almost entirely concerned with the study of light; he is known for Malus's law, giving the resultant intensity, when a polariser is placed in the path of an incident beam. In 1810 Malus was elected into the Académie des Sciences. That same year the Royal Society of London awarded him the Rumford Medal.

Folded with a minor tear. Well preserved.