LAVOISIEK. 317 



In the course of these inquiries, of the numerous 

 Memoirs to which they give rise, and of the various 

 discussions in which they involved him, M. Lavoisier, 

 who was so anxious, as we have seen, to obtain a share 

 as a kind of partner in the greatest discoveries of his 

 time, never showed any anxiety to distribute the praise 

 where it was really due, either among his contempo- 

 raries or their immediate predecessors. It might have 

 been thought difficult to write so often as he has done 

 upon the gases, and the new aera which their discovery 

 opened to chemistry, and not to have once mentioned 

 him, who, by the discovery of fixed air, was beyond 

 all doubt the founder of the system. Still more diffi- 

 cult was it to investigate the properties of that body, 

 ascertaining its composition with new accuracy, and 

 yet avoid all allusion to Black, who had long before 

 him proved it to be the product of charcoal when burnt. 

 The reader will search in vain, either the papers on 

 combustion, or those on acidification, or those on the 

 composition of fixed air, for the least reference to that 

 illustrious name. In the several Memoirs upon the 

 nature of heat, its absorption and evolution, its com- 

 bining in a quiescent state to form the permanently 

 elastic fluids, how difficult was it to avoid all mention 

 of him who made the great step of discovering latent 

 heat, and showed that to its absorption was owing- 

 fluidity, both liquid and aeriform ! I confess that when 

 I first read the title of one of those excellent papers, 

 " De la Combinaison de la Matiere du Feu avec les 

 Fluides evaporables, et de la Formation des Fluides 

 elastiques aeriformes," (Mem. de 1'Acad. 1777, p. 410,) 

 I expected to find mentioned, at every step of the dis- 

 cussion, the author of this whole theory, and who left 

 it absolutely perfect, who taught it from the year 1763 

 to crowded classes, and whose name was connected 

 with it wherever science was cultivated. My wonder 

 was not small when I found not the least allusion to 

 Black, and that the problem was completely solved. 



