^14? Historical Eloge o/'M. VauqiieUn, 



But even without taking into account the shar6 which the 

 latter had in these common labours, the rank which he occupies 

 among chemists will not be materially changed ; the works ex- 

 clusively his own are amply sufficient to place him on an equa- 

 lity witti the most distinguished. The amount of these works 

 is rather surprising. We are assured that there exist more than 

 80, some of them on pure chemistry, and others on such 

 ^iranches of natural science as chemistry is fitted to illustrate.*'' 



In the year 1791 some of them appeared in the Annates de 

 JOhimie, and from that period every scientific periodical publish- 

 ec( in Paris contained several ; affording a striking instance of 

 what an individual caji do for science, when he devotes to it all 

 his time and faculties. 



So entirely was M. Vauquelin engrossed with chemistry, that 

 K'toay b6 said to have formed the business of every day of his 

 life, ahd of every hour of the day; no labour or inquiry was 

 ever considered an inconvenience, provided it related to chemis- 

 try ;"and iio greater pleasure could be conferred on him than to 

 ask him to engage in some new investigation. He seldom vo- 

 luntarily proposed to himself problems which affected the great 

 doctrines of science : it was in some measure for the sake of 

 analysis that he analysed ; — salts, stones, minerals, the produce 

 of plants and animals, — whatever afforded scope for analysis 

 was his peculiar province. The results, whatever they hap- 

 pened to be, were usually submitted to the public, without 

 iiiuch solicitude about the consequences; but as every thing is 

 consistent in Natpre, there was scarcely one of them, however 

 insulated it might at first appear, which did not conduce to the 

 improvement of some process in art, to complete some theory, 

 to rectify some received opinions, or even to evolve some gene- 

 ral truth. It was thus that he threw a great and unexpected 

 light on mineralogy, animal and vegetable physiology, and on 

 subjects connected with mediciife and pharmacy. 



In animal chemistry, for example, the experiments which he 

 laid before the Academy in 3791, proved that the respiration 

 of insects, and other white-blooded animals, is of the same na- 

 ture, and produces the same effects on atmospheric air, as that of 

 the higher animals ^ 



1 Ann. de Chim. t. xii. p. 273 Bulletin de la Soo. Philom. 1792, p. 2',i. 



