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Lavoisier's Early Career in Science: An Examination of Some New Evidence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

J. B. Gough
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Extract

Shortly before his death in 1934, the British historian of chemistry, A. N. Meldrum, published two lengthy articles on Lavoisier's early career in science. After a careful investigation of the collection of manuscripts at the Académie des Sciences in Paris and in light of a detailed and penetrating analysis of Lavoisier's published work, Meldrum concluded that as a youth, Lavoisier was concerned with chemistry only to the extent that he found it useful for his mineralogical and geological researches. Lavoisier began his career as a mineralogist; he became a chemist only in 1772, the “crucial year” when he turned his attention to chemical theory for its own sake and started his famous course of experiments on the nature of combustion and fixed air. Although some details—notably concerning Lavoisier's early education and geological work—have been added to this account since Meldrum's time, the broad conclusions of Meldrum's study are still generally accepted by historians of the chemical revolution.

Type
Notes and Communications
Information
The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 4 , Issue 1 , June 1968 , pp. 52 - 57
Copyright
Copyright © British Society for the History of Science 1968

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References

1 “Lavoisier's Early Work in Science, 1763–1771”, Isis, xix (1933), 330–363Google Scholar; and xx (1933). 396–425.

2 Guerlac, H., “A Note on Lavoisier's Scientific Education”, Isis, xlvii (1956), 211–216.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Rappaport, R., “Lavoisier's Geologic Activities, 1763–1792”, Isis, lviii (1965), 375–384.Google Scholar

4 “Contribution à l'étude de l'évolution des idées de Lavoisier sur la nature de l'air et sur la calcination des métaux”, Archives internationales d'histoire des sciences, xii (1959) [1960], 138–145.Google Scholar

5 “A Lost Memoir of Lavoisier”, Isis, I (1959), 125–129.Google Scholar

6 MSS. Académie des Sciences, Lavoisier, 1670 Bm; the document is entitled, “Chimie Phisique, Sur les élémens, Sur le feu, l'eau et l'air”. Eller, 's memoir, the “Dissertation sur les élémens ou premiers principes des corps & c.—Seconde dissertation sur les élémens & c.”, appeared in Histoire de l'Académie Royale des Sciences et Belles Lettres (Berlin), ii (1746), 3–48.Google Scholar

7 MSS. Ac. Sci., Lavoisier, 1670 Bn; this document is entitled, “Chimie, Sur la matièrre du feu et les élémens en général”.

8 Lavoisier, théoricien et expérimentateur (Paris, 1955), 26.Google Scholar

9 Daumas, loc. cit.

10 See Crosland, Maurice, “The Development of the Concept of the Gaseous State as a Third State of Matter”, Proceedings of the 10th International Congress of the History of Science, ii (1962) [1964], 851–854.Google Scholar

11 “Du reste il faut lire les experiences Citees aux memoire [sic] dont jai deja parlé et consulter les auteurs quil Cite”, MSS. Ac. Sci., Lavoisier, 1670 Bm.

12 This theory as it exists in the chemistry of Rouelle and Lavoisier has been discussed at length by Guerlac, in Lavoisier—The Crucial Year (Ithaca, New York, 1961). 32–34 and 94–98.Google Scholar

13 MSS. Ac. Sci., Lavoisier. 1670 Bn.

14 The most elaborate and convincing arguments in favour of this “solution theory” of vapours were published by Charles Le Roy (1726–1779); the article “Evaporation”, in the Encyclopédie (Paris, 1756). vi. 123–130.Google Scholar

15 “resteroit a examiner. Si cest la matiere du feu latmosphere du soleill pure qui est unie a leau ou bien Si cette meme matierre y entre dans letat d acidum pingue”. MSS. Ac. Sci., Lavoisier, 1670 Bn.

16 In Oeuvres de Lavoisier, ed. Dumas, and Grimaux, , 6 vols. (Paris, 1864–1893), i 482–485.Google Scholar

17 Essais de chymie sur la chaux vive & c., 2 vols. (Paris, 1766).Google Scholar

18 MSS. Ac. Sci., Lavoisier, 251, fol. 35. Another dated May 1766, is a “plan d'un travail” on chemical mineralogy; one of the items listed reads, “refaire les experiences de M. Meyer pour voir Si toute la chaux est soluble”. (Ibid., fol. 21.) A third document, undated but undoubtedly from the same period, cites a page in Meyer's book on the combustion of oils. (Ibid., fol. 38.)

19 See Meyer, op. cit. (17), Author's Preface, xxxiii-xxxiv.

20 Guerlac, , op. cit. (12), 11–24.Google Scholar

21 See Guerlac, H., “The Continental Reputation of Stephen Hales”, Archives internationales d'histoire des sciences, xv (1951), 393–404.Google Scholar

22 La statique des végétaux et l'analyse de l'air, tr. Buffon, (Paris, 1735).Google Scholar

23 Guerlac, , op. cit. (12), 100–101.Google Scholar

24 Eller, , op. cit. (6), 44.Google Scholar

25 See (11) above.

26 “Recherches sur les moyens les plus sûrs, les plus exacts et les plus commodes de déterminer la pesanteur spécifique des fluides & c.” in Lavoisier, , op. cit. (16), iii, 427–450.Google Scholar

27 Ibid., 450. This passage surely could not have escaped the attention of Meldrum. That he failed to mention it is probably because he thought it to be an addition made by Lavoisier sometime after 1772. In discussing this essay (and an earlier companion), Meldrum warns: “It is necessary to remark that these two memoirs were published, not by Lavoisier but by Dumas and that, as printed [in the Oeuvres] they are not identical with what was presented to the Académie des Sciences. Both memoirs are known to have been altered, the first much more than the second”, op. cit. (1), xix, 349.Google Scholar Further research, however, would have shown Meldrum that, whatever additions Lavoisier might have made, this particular passage with its mention of Hales and Eller and its reflections on the problem of the air's fixation existed in the original manuscript version that Lavoisier gave Grandjean de Fouchy on 20 December 1768. This signed and dated copy still exists (MSS. Ac. Sci., Lavoisier, 1405) with the above quotation (fol. 50–51) exactly as it was published in the Oeuvres (excepting, of course, minor changes of spelling and punctuation). Furthermore, it is obvious from inspection of the manuscript that the passage could not have been inserted at a later date. It is an integral part of the text (i.e. not a marginal notation), written in a hand consistent with the remainder of the document and in the same ink. The manuscript was bound with ribbon and Grandjean de Fouchy's signature appears with the date both on the first and last of its numbered pages.