LAVOISIER. 263 



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 per- 

 ceived 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 investi- 

 gated. He was likewise consulted, with great advantage to 

 the public service, upon the best means of preventing for- 

 gery, when the system of paper credit led to the issue of 

 assignats. The Academy, as well as the state at large, 

 benefited amply by his mature and practical genius, 

 formed to direct and further the affairs of life as well 

 as the speculations of the closet. All its plans, and all 

 the subjects referred to it by the government, received 

 the inestimable advantage of his assistance and advice; 

 he was a member of the Board of Consultation, and he 

 was the treasurer of the body, in which capacity he 

 introduced new order and exact economy into the 

 management of its concerns. 



These public cares did not distract him from that 

 due to the administration of his private concerns. Agri- 

 culture had early in life engaged his attention; and he 

 set apart a considerable tract of land on his estate, at 

 Vendome, for experimental farming. Of the peasantry 

 upon his property he always took the most kind and 

 parental care ; and to the poor, in general, his charities 

 knew no bounds but those of his means. His house in 

 Paris is described as having been a vast laboratory, in 

 which experiments were always going on: not merely 

 those contrived by himself and subservient to his own 

 speculations, but whatever trials any one connected with 

 science desired to have made, and which required the aid 



