Biography of Berzelius. 27 



honours and great riches, which were perhaps obstacles to 

 his being subsequently as active for science as formerly. It 

 is, moreover, in the highest degree to be regretted that, in 

 the latter years of his life, his very extraordinary talents were 

 entirely estranged from that science for which he might have 

 achieved so much. 



Gay-Lussac commenced his scientific career with the dis- 

 covery of an important law in physics, but he afterwards 

 applied himself wholly to chemistry, and advanced it as much 

 by accurate investigations as brilliant discoveries. To him 

 is owing, among other important facts, the law, so important 

 for the doctrine of definite proportions, that gases unite in 

 simple relations of volume, — a discovery of which, however, 

 he did not at first make many applications of which it was 

 capable. But the most brilliant researches of Gay-Lussac 

 are indisputably, — besides those published in common with 

 Thenard on physico-chemical subjects, — the two sets of re- 

 searches upon cyanogen and iodine. Even independently 

 of the extremely important influence which these researches 

 exercised upon the whole range of chemistry, they may be 

 regarded as models of investigation, both as regards the 

 total results, the strict consistency of the reasoning, and the 

 admirable description. As often as they are read, even 

 at the present day, they will be regarded with astonish- 

 ment. 



But when, soon after the appearance of his paper upon 

 cyanogen, Gay-Lussac undertook, in conjunction with Arago, 

 the editorship of the " Annales de Chim. et de Physique," his 

 scientific activity became gradually less. The first volumes 

 of this Journal certainly contain several small papers and 

 remarks which call to mind the author of those on Iodine and 

 Cyanogen ; but after a few years he ceased to write almost 

 altogether; and it is almost more to be sincerely regretted 

 than in the case of Davy, that Gay-Lussac, who died but a 

 short time since, and after Berzelius, should already in the 

 vigour of life have renounced his active scientific career, 

 which seemed to promise so much. 



It was not so with Berzelius. He also, after years of po- 

 verty, gradually attained, if not to great wealth at least to 



