was a mechanical predecessor of the modern-day Marx generator. Using this device, Planté explored the electrical breakdown of air, the formation of Lichtenberg figures, and the behaviour of thin wires when pulsed by high electric currents. Death and legacy He died on 21 May 1889 in the Bellevue part of Meudon, near Paris. In 1989 the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences established the Gaston Planté Medal, which is awarded every few years to scientists who have made significant contributions to the development of lead-acid battery technology. Footnotes References (2001): Understanding Batteries. Royal Society of Chemistry. . (1855): "Annonce de la découverte d'un oiseau fossile de taille gigantesque, trouvé à la partie inférieure de l'argile plastique des terrains parisiens" ["Announcement of the discovery of a fossil bird of gigantic size, found in the lower Argile Plastique formation of the Paris region"]. C. R. Hebd. Acad. Sci. Paris 40: 554-557 [Article in French]. PDF fulltext at Gallica. External links https://web.archive.org/web/20070928154235/http://www.altacal.org/newsletter_2006_04/essay.html http://www.corrosion-doctors.org/Biographies/PlantelBio.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20070116220815/http://dspt.club.fr/PLANTE.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20061104160249/http://labatonline.com/conference/history.html https://web.archive.org/web/20061104160333/http://labatonline.com/conference/medal.html e-book copy of The Storage Of Electrical Energy by Gaston Planté, 1859 1834 births 1889 deaths People from Orthez 19th-century French inventors 19th-century French physicists Battery inventors Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery