78 JAMES MUSPRATT 



many others, had constituted a glorious 

 constellation. The Academic des Sciences 

 stimulated invention and discovery. In the 

 year 1775 ^ offered a prize of 2,400 livres for 

 the best practical and profitable process of 

 producing soda from common salt. The 

 alkali in common use was that obtained from 

 kelp; it was seen that some method should 

 be devised for obtaining a more plentiful and 

 cheaper supply of alkali from the abundant 

 salt of soda. 



In the year 1753, at Issoudun, a town of 

 some 10,000 inhabitants, about nineteen 

 miles south of Orleans, where various 

 manufactures were carried on, and where 

 there was a college, was born Nicolas 

 Leblanc. He was trained in an apothecary's 

 shop, and having studied pharmacy, passed 

 on to surgery. He must have been a man 

 of considerable ability, for he was appointed 

 surgeon to the Duke of Orleans, and he was 

 the author of various scientific works. 

 Incited to the research by the prize offered 

 by the Academic, he devoted his attention to 

 the treatment of common salt. Many others 

 were also at work. A Benedictine Father, 

 Malherbe, had his process of lixiviating the 

 fused mixture of sulphate of soda, iron and 



