476 NOTES. 



have shown M. Cuvier that Dr. Black, as early as 1766, 

 showed his friends the ascent of a bladder filled with inflam- 

 mable air, long before the experiments of M. Charles, to 

 whom the earliest observation of this fact is by M. Cuvier 

 rashly ascribed. 



M. Cuvier mentions Macquer as having first observed the 

 deposit of moisture when inflammable air is burnt. He says 

 nothing of Mr. Warltire's experiment, though Mr. Caven- 

 dish himself states expressly (' Phil. Trans.' 1784, p. 126) 

 that it was the deposit of dew observed by Warltire, which 

 set him on making his experiments. From this omission 

 of M. Cuvier, it is plain that he never took the trouble to 

 read the paper of Mr. Cavendish, which, as he refers to it 

 by volume and page, he may, therefore, have seen he never 

 could have read it. This also accounts for his singular as- 

 sertion, that Mr. Cavendish's discoveries were explained 

 with an evidence and a clearness more astonishing than the 

 discoveries themselves. 



It is equally incorrect to affirm, as M. Cuvier appears to 

 do, p. cxxxiii., that the decomposition of water suggested by 

 M. de la Place, and performed by M. Lavoisier, became " la 

 clef de lavoute," for the analytical experiment is equivocal, 

 and the synthetical alone is precise. He says that M. 

 Monge had made the same experiments as Mr. Cavendish, 

 and had the same idea, " avoit eu la meme idee," probably 

 meaning that of a quantity of water being formed equal to 

 the quantity of airs burnt, and had communicated the result 

 to Lavoisier and La Place ; and Monge seems really to give 

 the first notion of water being composed of these airs, as La 

 Place's ; for he says, " Si la combustion de ces airs donne 

 de 1'eau, dit M. de la Place, c'est qu'ils resultent de sa de- 

 composition." Had M. Cuvier really read the work he so 

 often cites, the ' Philosophical Transactions,' he would have 

 found Mr. Watt's letter, and he could hardly have avoided 

 mentioning the first idea of the composition as his. 



But truly it is to be lamented that the history of science 

 should be written with such remarkable carelessness, and 

 such manifest inattention to the facts. To find mistakes so 

 very gross in the works of ordinary writers might excite 

 little surprise ; but when they are embodied in the history 

 of the National Institute, and when they come to us under 



