Lacroix, Alfred

Alfred Lacroix, in full François-antoine-alfred Lacroix, (born Feb. 4, 1863, Mâcon, France—died March 12, 1948, Paris), French mineralogist whose Minéraux des roches (1888; “The Minerals of Rocks”), written with the geologist Albert Michel-Lévy, was a pioneer study of the optical properties of rock-forming minerals.

From 1893 to 1936 Lacroix was professor of mineralogy at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris. Lacroix’s Minéralogie de la France et de ses colonies (1893–1913) and later his Minéralogie de Madagascar (1922–23), noted for their wide scope and comprehensive treatment, stand as unique in regional mineralogy. He contributed greatly to volcanology by his study of Mount Pelée in Martinique, La Montagne Pelée et ses éruptions (1904), and by his investigations of the 1906 eruption of Vesuvius in Italy. He became perpetual secretary of the Académie des Sciences, Paris, in 1920 and later wrote many biographies of great value to the history of science.