LAVOISIER. 233 



incapable of supporting either animal life or flame. 

 These experiments of his were published in 1772. 



Before proceeding further with the history of chemical 

 discovery, it is necessary I should mention a serious in- 

 convenience thrown in the way of the accurate inquirer 

 by the very extraordinary manner in which the ' Memoirs 

 of the French Academy' have always been published. 

 The 'Philosophical Transactions' appear most carefully 

 in two, sometimes, though very rarely, in three parts 

 every year, and all the papers published each year have 

 been read before the Society during the course of that 

 year; nay, all the papers which form each part have 

 been read during the half-year immediately preceding 

 the publication of that part. It is far otherwise with 

 the French Academy's ' Memoirs ;' these never are pub- 

 lished in less than three, sometimes even four years after 

 the year to which they nominally relate. Thus the 

 volume for 1772 consists of two parts, one of which was 

 published in 1775, and the other in 1776. But this 

 would occasion a small inconvenience to the inquirer 

 into dates and facts, if it only indicated that the work 

 was constantly in arrear, and that the papers purporting 

 to be those of any given year, as 1772, were not published 

 till three or four years later. That, however, is by no 

 means the case. It continually happens that the papers 

 classed as those of one year were in reality read a year 

 or two later. In earlier periods the dates are often not 

 given at which papers were read, but from internal evi- 

 dence we find when they were read; for in the volume 

 for 1772, p. 12, we have M. Lavoisier quoting a book 

 published in January, 1773, and describing an experi- 

 ment made in August of that year, (p. 598). So in the 



