510 NOTES. 



covered the evolving of fixed air in that process, and that he 

 himself only made his experiments to ascertain if any other 

 air was also evolved, when he found inflammable air also to 

 come away. Apparently he had not been aware of Dr. Black's 

 experiments in 1757- The Lectures would also have shewn 

 M. Cuvier that Dr. Black, as early as 1 7^6, showed his friends 

 the ascent of a bladder rilled with inflammable 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 assertion, 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 u ia 

 clef de la voute," 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, r 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 w r ater 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 decomposition." 

 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 



