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LAV 
of enemies, among the bigoted and ignorant, who found 
means to engage the higher powers on their fide. In con- 
fequence of this, it was intimated to him, that it was the 
king’s defire that the aflemblies in his apartments fhould 
be difcontinued. They likewife were fo fuccefsful in 
their artifices, as to procure his expulfion from the col¬ 
lege of Navarre in the year 164.8. Upon this he retired 
to the abbe d’Eftrees, who lived in Laon-college. That 
abbe, having been made bilhop of Laon in 1653, pre- 
fented his friend de Laimoy to two canonries in his ca¬ 
thedral ; but he foon refigned thefe preferments, upon the 
pretence that he had no voice, and, confequently, was 
not qualified for thefe employments. He alfo refufed 
other offers of promotion, and lived contented on his own 
fmall income, preferring a life of fimp]icity and poverty, 
and being entirely indifferent to the things of the world. 
He fnid, that God had made him underhand, that it is 
much more difficult for a Chriftian to make a right life of 
riches than to live without them. He died in 1678, at 
the hotel of cardinal d’Eftrees, when he was in the fe- 
venty-fifth year of his age. His chief work was De Audio -, 
ritate ncgavtis Argumenti ; which, Bayle fays, had he pub- 
lifhed no other, would have eftablifhed his fame as a great 
benefactor to the republic of letters, by the thoufand fine 
hints which it contains for diftinguifhing truth from falfe- 
liood in hiftorical matters. The reft of his works we fliall 
not enumerate : a good edition of the whole was pub- 
lifired by the abbe Granet, in 1731, in ten volumes, folio. 
LAUNZAN', f. The name given by the natives of the 
Burman empire to a tree which grows on the mountains 
of that country, and yields an abundance of oil and efcu- 
lent fruit. It is defcribed by Dr. F. Buchanan in the 5th 
volume of the Afiatic Refearches ; but, as the doftor ne¬ 
ver faw the tree growing, nor the ripe fruit, his account 
mull of courfe be imperfedl; and hence we do not find 
that it has ever received a name in the Linnxan fyftem. 
If it fhould not be taken to conftitute a new genus, it 
will probably be confidered as a fpecies of Saponaria. 
The tree is faid to be very lofty; and muft produce im- 
menfe quantities of the fruit. In times of plenty, little 
ufeis made of the fruit,except for yielding oil ; and befides 
a fmall quantity of the feeds are gathered, and fent to all 
parts of the empire, where they are ufed for nearly the 
fame purpofes that almonds are amongft us 5 but the de¬ 
mand in this way cannot be confiderable. It is in times 
of fcarcity that the fruit becomes valuable. It is laid, 
when ripe, to be red ; and, like a peach, confifts of a fuc- 
culent outer flefli, containing a hard fliell, in which there 
is a fingle feed. The outer fiefhy part is laid to be agree¬ 
ably acid, and fafe to eat. When that is removed, the 
ihells, by a flight beating, fplit in two, and are thus ea- 
fily feparated from the kernel. Thefe kernels tafte very 
much like a walnut; but are rather fofter, but more oily. 
As they can, at thofe places where the trees grow, be af¬ 
forded very cheap, in times of fcarcity they are carefully 
gathered ; and, when boiled with a little rice or Indian 
corn, furnifh a great part of the food of the lower clafs of 
the natives. 
LAVOISI'ER (Anthony Laurence), an eminent che- 
inift and philofopher, was born at Paris in Auguft 1743. 
His father, a man of opulence, gave him every advantage 
of education ; which he fo well improved, as to acquire, 
while a young man, a thorough acquaintance with all thd 
branches of phyfical fcience. In the year 1764, the French 
government having propofed a prize-quefiion, what was the 
belt method of lighting the ltreets of a great city, the 
prize was divided among three artifts who had made expe- 
ihnentson the fubje£t,as noticed under our article Lamp, 
p. 120; but Lavoifier, who had examined it as a philofo¬ 
pher and man of letters, was rewarded in a different man¬ 
lier: the paper which he wrote in anfwer to this queftion 
was publifhed at the expenfe of the Academy of Sciences, 
and the king caufed a gold medal to be prefented to him 
by the prefident in a public fitting of the academy held 
©a the 3th of April, 1766. This paper, which contained 
LAV 
a great many excellent mathematical and philosophical ob- 
fervations, announced the author’s entrance in the career 
of fcience in which he afterwards continued to diftinguifh 
hirnfelf. 
On the 18th of May, 1768, he was chofen a member of 
the academy, in the room of Baron ; and about the fame 
period he publifhed feveral treatifes in different periodical 
publications, fuch as Obfervations on the propofal for 
erefting a fteam-engine to fupply the city of Paris with wa¬ 
ter, on thunder, on the northern lights, on the tranfffion 
of water into ice, &_c. The Memoirs of the Academy fer¬ 
tile year 1770 contain Obfervations by him on the nature 
of water, and on the experiments faid to prove the poffi- 
bility of its converlion into earth. Lavoifier, however, 
ill owed that the earth obtained by the diftillation of wa¬ 
ter was a part of the veflel which had been attacked dur¬ 
ing the operation ; for, having continued the diftillation 
without interruption 101 days, the total weight of the 
veflel and of the water contained in it remained unchang¬ 
ed, but the veflel had loft as much in weight as the water 
had gained. 
Lavoifier, by various journeys to the different diftrifts 
of France, in company with M. Guettard, furnifhed him- 
felf with copious materials for the lithology and minera¬ 
logy of the kingdom, which he arranged into a kind of a 
chart. They were the foundation for a work of his on the 
revolutions of the globe, and the formation of the ftrata 
of the earth, of which Iketches were given in the Memoirs 
of the Academy for 177a and 1787. 
At this period the experimental philofophers were ea¬ 
gerly employed in refearches concerning the gafes, or fac¬ 
titious airs, and feveral new fubftances of this clafs had. 
been difeovered, principally by the fagacity and induf- 
try of Dr. Prieftley. M. Lavoifier, ftruck with the beau¬ 
ty ar.d importance of thefe difeoveries, entered into the 
fame field of inquiry with all the fcientific ardour by 
which he was charatfterifed; and, poffelling the advantage 
of a confiderable fortune, lie conducted his experiments 
upon a large fcale, with inftruments of the moft improved 
conftruilion. The Opufcules Chymiques, which he pub- 
lithed in 1774, gave a clear and elegant view of every 
thing which had hitherto been done with refpeft to the 
hiftory of aeriform bodies, with feveral experiments of his 
own, remarkable for their ingenuity and accuracy. Soon 
after the difeovery of that which Dr. Prieftley called de- 
phlogifticated air, and Scheele very pure air, Lavoifier en¬ 
gaged in an examination of its nature; and, in 1778, 
publifhed his proofs that this fubftance is a conftituent 
principle of all acids, to which, therefore, he gave the 
name of oxygen. His experiments of the produftion of 
water, in 1783, by burning oxygen gas with hydrogen gas, 
and of its decompofition into the fame elements, were a 
further ftep towards the new fyftem of chemiftry, of which 
he was the founder. It was completed by his theories of 
combuftion and oxydation, his analyfis of atmofpherical 
air, his doctrine of caloric, or the matter of heat, See. and 
was given to the world in his Elemens de Chymie, publifhed 
in 1789, which was a model of fcientific compofition. Its 
principles were adopted by the moft eminent chemifts in 
Europe ; and have given an entirely new form to the fci¬ 
ence of Chemistry. 
In France, more than in any other country, men of fci¬ 
ence have been confulted in matters of public concern ; 
and the reputation of Lavoifier caufed him to be applied 
to in 1776, by the enlightened miniller Turgot, to fuper- 
intend the manufacture of gun-powder. His inveftiga- 
tions were fo fuccefsful, that he increafed the explofive 
force of that article by one-fourth ; and, while he fup- 
prefled the troublefome regulations for the collection of 
its materials from private houfes, before in ufe, he quin¬ 
tupled the produce. He rendered many other fervices to 
the arts and fciences, both in a public and a private capa¬ 
city. Being appointed to the office of treafurer of the 
academy, he introduced order into the accounts, and eco¬ 
nomy into the expenditure. He was a member of its 
board. 
