EULOGY ON GAY-LUSSAC. 165 



ing bis well-merited celebrity, often allowed himself to be drawn, and 

 in which the most pompous words were found side by side with such 

 technical expressions as ammonia, azote, carbon. His language and 

 style were grave, correct, nervous, always perfectly adapted to the sub- 

 ject and characterized by the mathematical spirit which he had imbibed 

 in his youth at the Polytechnic School. He had the power, as others 

 had, of exciting astonishment in his audience by presenting himself be- 

 fore it without any manuscript notes in his hand; but he would have 

 run the risk of using erroneous figures, and exactness was a merit which 

 touched him most nearly. 



Gay-Lussac's knowledge of the foreign languages, Italian, English, 

 and German, enabled him to enrich his lectures with erudition of the 

 purest kind, and drawn from the original sources. He it is who has 

 initiated our own chemists and physicists into several theories originat- 

 ing on the right bank of the Rhine. In brief, Gay-Lussac, who has not 

 been surpassed by any contemporary chemist in the importance, novelty, 

 and brilliancy of his discoveries, has also indisputably occupied the first 

 rank among the professors of the capital upon whom devolved the task 

 of teaching the sciences at the Polytechnic School. 



On entering Gay-Lussac's laboratory every one was struck, at the first 

 glance, with the intelligent order which reigned everywhere. The ma- 

 chines and different utensils, for the most part prepared by his own 

 hands, were remarkable for the most careful conception and execution. 

 You will pardon me these details, gentlemen. If, as Buffon has said, 

 " Style makes the man," we might add with not less reason thatthe great 

 chemist and good physicist are recognized by the condition of the ap- 

 paratus which they use. Imperfections in the operation are always more 

 or less reflected by the results. 



When the chemist operates upon new substances and combinations 

 with unknown reactions, he is exposed to real and almost inevitable dan- 

 gers. Gay-Lussac realized this but too truly. During his long and 

 glorious scientific campaigns, he was seriously wounded on several dif- 

 ferent occasions ; the first time, June 3, 1808, by potassium, prepared 

 in large quantities by a new method. Messrs. de Humboldt and Th6- 

 nard led our friend with his eyes bandaged from the laboratory of the 

 Polytechnic School, where the accident occurred, to his house rue des 

 Poules, which, by the way, it would be well to call rue Gay-Lussac. In 

 spite of the prompt attention of Dupuytren, he lost the lachrymal 

 glands and thought himself perfectly blind for a month. This disheart- 

 ening prospect for a man of thirty was borne by our friend with a calm- 

 ness and serenity that the stoics of antiquity might have admired. 



" For nearly a year," said Madame Gay-Lussac, (in a note she had the 

 goodness to send me,) " the reflection from a small night-lamp before 

 which I placed myself to read to him, was the only light he could en- 

 dure. During the rest of his life his eyes remained red and weak." 



The last explosion of which Gay-Lussac was the victim, took place at 

 a period of his life when misinformed individuals declared him to be 



