The strange case of Paul Appell's last memoir on Monge's problem: ``sur les deblais et remblais''

We analyze a case of plagiarism that appears in a work published in 1928 by Paul Appell (1855-1930) in the collection Memorial des sciences mathematiques. Appell's memoir entitled Le probleme geometrique des deblais et remblais contains a verbatim copy of several pages from a memoir published in 1886 by Albert de Saint-Germain (1839-1914). By tracing back Appell's last years, we have found historical evidences that might cast a shadow of doubt on Appell's full responsibility by the plagiarism that appeared under his name. (C) 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.