70 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



paring a metal, so valuable for chemistry and the arts, and yet no contemporary 

 writer has recorded the claim of our modest compatriot to the glory of this dis- 

 covery. I apply to him the term modest, for in spite of all our entreaties he 

 could never be persuaded to put forward his just claims. But to-day, as we 

 have before our eyes the letters-patent of the Spanish government, bearing the 

 date of 1783 and testifying to the discovery made by Chabaneau, we come to lay 

 claim for him to the honor of incontestible priority, and to preserve his memory, 

 ungratefully forgotten by his contemporaries. 



About 1790 Chabaneau published a large work on the natural sciences in 

 the Spanish language, which was to have been followed by several others, but 

 which was complete as far as regards his specialty. This work, which demanded 

 bo much research, night work, and fatigue of every kind, gravely affected his 

 health, and the court physicians prescribed a return to his native air and a 

 period of complete repose. This rest and our climate affected him so favorably 

 that in a few months his health was wholly regained, and he determined to 

 renounce his pension of 15,000 francs in order to dwell in his fatherland and to 

 end in this quiet retreat, in the bosom of his family, a life, hitherto passed 

 among strangers in the midst of the most assiduous labors. 



Retiring to the country, near Nontron, he sought to live obscurely, but the 

 jury of the central schools of France besought him to accept the chair of physics 

 and experimental chemistry in the Ecole Centrale of P6rigueux. The subjects 

 were so seldom taught at this period that Chabaneau felt it the duty of a good 

 citizen to accept the modest position. His course of lectures, which lasted two 

 years, was printed at the expense of the administration, and published in the 

 year VII by Canler at Perigueux. 



On the suppression of the central schools he was offered a chair of chemistry 

 at Paris, and his permission was sought to translate and publish his great work; 

 but, well determined this time to live in his quiet retreat, he refused all these 

 propositions, desiring only to live in solitude and to enjoy the repose so needed 

 and so welcome after all his labors. 



He died in January, 1842, at the age of 88, and left no descendant bearing 

 his name. He lived tranquilly, isolated from the world, on his country-place of 

 Clara, near Nontron, dividing his time, like a sage of antiquity, between rural 

 pursuits and philosophical study. 



We knew him only in his declining years, but he was then a fine-looking old 

 man, with pleasing and regular features, bearing much resemblance to those of 

 our good and lamented BeYanger. His conversation was charming and always 

 instructive. Friend and contemporary of Volney, of Cabanis, of Lavoisier, he 

 was nourished upon their ideas and imbued with their spirit, and they were 

 pleasingly reflected in his conversation. 



Thus ends the story which has happily rescued for us from oblivion 

 the life and work of one of the gifted early workers in chemistry. That 

 his name had been forgotten is doubtless chiefly due to his own modesty, 

 but in part also to the fact that his labors were largely carried on in 

 Spain, and his only important published work was in that language. 

 Whatever may be the reason, the atmosphere of Spain has never been 

 conducive to the development of science. 



