548 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



good, and compares well with the lands of southern and western 

 Buenos Ayres, having in its favor, for agricultural purposes, a far 

 better climate ; and is adapted to the growth of cotton, tobacco, 

 the castor-oil plant, the olive, barley, sorghum, Indian corn, rice, 

 the manioc, and many other products of temperate and intertropi- 

 cal climates. Cattle thrive in all the Chacos, attaining an extraor- 

 dinary development in size, especially among the Indian herds, 

 where they depend exclusively upon the grasses and wild fruits 

 such as the palm and locust. The grasses are varied and abun- 

 dant, and include many of the species highly thought of in Buenos 

 Ayres, which is the pre-eminent cattle-growing section just now 

 of the Argentina. — Abridged for the Popular Science Monthly from 

 the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society. 



-4»» 



SKETCH OF LAVOISIER. 



ANTOINE LAURENT LAVOISIER was born on the 26th * of 

 August, 1743, and suffered death by the guillotine on the 8th 

 of May, 1794. His family, descended from a postilion in the royal 

 stables in the previous century, had gradually risen in estate. His 

 father, styled in the standard biographies a " wealthy tradesman," 

 is described by M. Grimaux, in the " Revue des Deux Mondes," as 

 a graduate of the law school, and advocate and attorney in the Par- 

 liament of Paris. The family had also considerable wealth on the 

 mother's side. Lavoisier's father was thus able to provide his son 

 with good instruction, and interested himself in doing so. The 

 youth was sent to the College Mazarin, where he was remarked as a 

 brilliant pupil and a diligent student. Science at once became the 

 prominent object of his studies. After leaving the college he took 

 a course in law, and was admitted as an advocate in 1764. At the 

 same time he began those studies by which he became eminent in 

 many branches of science. He pursued mathematics and as- 

 tronomy with the Abbe* La Caille ; botany with Bernard de Jus- 

 sieu ; mineralogy and geology with Guettard ; and chemistry with 

 Rouelle. At twenty years of age, while he seemed to give the 

 principal share of his attention to mathematics, he became inter- 

 ested in meteorology, and began a series of barometric observa- 

 tions, which were continued through his whole life. 



So interested did Lavoisier become in his studies that he was 

 ready, in his twentieth year, to give up general society and confine 



* So it is given in the " Biographie Generate " on the authority of J. Lalande, and by 

 M. Edouard Grimaux, who writes on the authority of original manuscripts and correspond- 

 ence in the " Revue des Deux Mondes" for December 15, 1887. Other biographers give 

 the 16th of August. 



