66 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



of water into earth, in which the balance was used as an instrument of 

 chemical research, and which soon led to the conception of the perma- 

 nence of matter and later to the overthrow of the phlogiston theory. 

 This work of Lavoisier could not fail to make a great impression upon 

 such a mind as that of Chabaneau. 



His pupils made rapid progress; they wondered at the knowledge of the 

 young professor, and the director, abbe" La Rose, did not cease from expressing 

 his satisfaction. . . . 



Chabaneau was now about twenty years old, an age when is often born the 

 love of independence. He knew that the knowledge which he now possessed 

 would suffice to supply all his material needs. He therefore resigned from his 

 position in the college of Passy, after having expressed his most sincere thanks 

 to his benefactor, and, taking lodgings in the Rue des Mathurins, within the city, 

 opened after the fashion of that day a course of public lectures which met with 

 great success. 



Among the most assiduous of his auditors were the young sons of the Comte 

 de Pena-Florida, whose father had sent them to France to complete their educa- 

 tion, and also to procure several professors for a great college for the nobility 

 which he purposed founding at Bergara. 



Bergara was a small city in the Basque province of Guipuzcoa in 

 northern Spain, and near the bay of Biscay. It afterwards came into 

 some prominence as the place where the treaty was signed in 1839 

 between Spain and the Carlists of the Basque provinces. Of the subse- 

 quent history of the college I have been able to learn nothing. 



The young nobles gained the affection of their professor and made him the 

 most brilliant offers if he would accept the direction of the college founded by 

 their father. For a long time Chabaneau resisted, but, finally yielding to the 

 earnest solicitation of the young marquesses and other friends, he decided to 

 exchange France for Spain. He immediately began the study of the Spanish 

 language, and with such ardor that in a few months he felt that he had fully 

 mastered it. 



He remained three years at Bergara, devoted himself without relaxation to 

 scientific study, and acquired such a reputation that the king, Charles III., wish- 

 ing to locate him in Madrid, created for him a public Chair of Mineralogy, 

 Physics and Chemistry, lodged him in one of his palaces, and granted him an 

 annual stipend of 2,200 piasters ($2,400), a very considerable sum for that time. 



The inauguration of his course took place in the presence of the king and 

 all the court. This opening lecture had for its subject the utility and the future 

 of science, and was so remarkable that a Spanish poet composed for the occasion 

 an ode, dedicated to the learned professor. Impelled by the love of science and 

 wishing to justify the high favor in which he was held by the king, Chabaneau 

 continued with great earnestness his scientific work. As he desired to enter into 

 relations with all the learned men of Europe and to profit by their work, he 

 recognized the necessity of studying English, Italian, German, etc. So energetic 

 was he in his language study that at the age of twenty-five he was master of no 

 less than eight languages, living or dead. 



Charles III. provided Chabaneau with a valuable library and a laboratory, 

 considered at that day ' ' magnificent. ' ' All the spare moments remaining from 

 his public instruction were devoted to the study of physics and especially of 

 chemistry. At this period Spanish America was sending to the mint at Madrid 



