318 LAVOISIER. 



how to frame an exact account of any given man's 

 discoveries and theory, never coming into contact with 

 his name. No reader of that paper could doubt that 

 the whole doctrine was that of M. Lavoisier himself; 

 and in a paper printed seven years after by himself 

 and M. de La Place, on the nature of heat, a reference 

 is distinctly made to this doctrine of aeriform fluidity, 

 as the theory of M. Lavoisier.* We find this in the 

 Memoirs for 1780,t published 1784, but the paper was 

 read June 18, 1783. The theory of latent heat had 

 been taught by Dr. Black to large classes for above 

 twenty years before that time, and had been universally 

 associated with his name in every part of the world. 



But it maybe supposed, that by some singular chance, 

 M. Lavoisier was unacquainted with that illustrious 

 name. I must therefore produce evidence to the con- 

 trary under his own hand. In Oct., 1789, he writes 

 to Dr. Black, and professes himself to be "zele admir- 

 ateur de la profondeur de votre genie, et des import- 

 antes revolutions que vos decouvertes ont occasionnees 

 dans la chimie." In the following year, July 14, he 

 tells him ; " Accoutume a vous regarder comme mon 

 maitre, je ne serai content jusqu'a ce que les circon- 

 stances permettent de vous alter porter moi-meme le 

 temoignage de mon admiration, et de me ranger au 

 nombre de vos disciples." Now after writing these 

 letters, M. Lavoisier published his i Elements;' and 

 while writing them he published, in the Memoirs of 

 the Academy, a paper in which the doctrine of latent 

 heat, as the cause of fluidity, is described, and described 

 as his own, not as Black's, whose name is wholly 

 avoided." { 



* Mem. 1780, p. 399. 



f See, too, vol. for 1777, p. 595. In the paper 1777 first cited, the 

 only thing ascribed to preceding philosophers is the belief in the existence 

 of an igneous fluid, or matter of heat in our planet ; and the experiments 

 of Richman, Cullen, Mairan, and Baume on the production of cold by 

 evaporation. 



t Me*n. 1789, p. 567. Black is mentioned with Boyle, Hales, and 



