LAVO1SIEK. 321 



successors, deprive these comparatively imperfect at- 

 tempts in geological science of nearly their whole 

 interest. 



In the course of the illustrious career which we have 

 been surveying, its brightness occasionally dimmed 

 with the spots which a regard for the truth of history 

 overcoming our regard for his fame made it a duty to 

 mark, this great man occasionally gave his aid to the 

 administration of public affairs, not as a politician, for 

 from that craft he ever kept aloof, but when called in 

 by the government to its assistance. In 1776 M. 

 Turgot, then minister, requested him to superintend 

 the manufacture of gunpowder ; and the result of his 

 labours was both the increase by nearly a fourth in the 

 explosive force of the compound, and what the en- 

 lightened statesman who employed him valued still 

 more, the suppression of the vexatious regulations for 

 collecting saltpetre from private buildings : an opera- 

 tion of wise as well as humane legislation, by which 

 the produce of that necessary article was increased 

 fourfold. When the National Assembly, in 1791, ap- 

 pointed a committee to improve the system of taxation, 

 he was again consulted, and he drew up a treatise, en- 

 titled ' JKichesse Territoriale de la France' which con- 

 tained the fullest account yet given of the production 

 and consumption of the country, and was by far the 

 most valuable report ever presented to the legislature. 

 Being appointed one of the Commissioners of the 

 Treasury in the same year, he introduced into that 

 great department such system and such regularity, 

 that the income and expenditure under each head 

 could be perceived at a single glance each successive 

 day. To the new metrical system he contributed by 

 accurate experiments upon the expansion of metals, 

 never before fully investigated. He was likewise con- 

 sulted, with great advantage to the public service, 

 upon the best means of preventing forgery, when the 

 system of paper credit led to the issue of assignats. 



