LAVOISIER, Antoine Laurent, 16-ron la-vwa-ze-a, French chemist: b. Paris, -26 Aug. 1743; d. there, 8 May 1794. He was the son of a wealthy tradesman; was educated at the Cellege Mazarin; studied mathematics and astronomy under Lacaille, chemistry in the laboratory of Rouelle and botany under Jus sieu. In 1766 he received a prize offered by 'the Academy of Sciences (of which in 1768 he became an associate), for an essay on light ing the streets of Paris. Soon after this he traveled through France collecting material from which he constructed the first geological chart produced in that country, during the same period publishing a number of scientific treat ises. In 1769 he was appointed one of the farmers-general of the revenue. By means of his wealth and influence he secured special ad vantages for extending his investigations, which were also stimulated by the new dis coveries of Priestley, Cavendish and Black. In 1776 he was director of the government powder-works; sat on the commission of weights and measures in 1790; and in 1791 be came commissary to the treasury. In May 1794 he was accused before the Convention as an ex-farmer-general, condemned by the Rev olutionary tribunal and guillotined.
To. Lavoisier modern chemistry looks as its chief founder; he organized its methods, re formed the old nomenclature and virtually established for this science a new terminology.
By his work mainly the old phlogistic diem istry was displaced, and he shares with Joseph Priestley (q.v.) the distinction due to the dis covery and analysis of oxygen, to which he gave its name, Priestley having already called it edephlogisticated air.* °Lavoisier,* says Huxley, °first showed, oy the most conclusive experiments, what was really the composition 'of atmospheric air* (1777). His chief works, as containing his most important discoveries, are his
elementaire de Chimie' (1789) ; and his posthumous
de Physique et de Chime' (1805). Among his others are
la combustion en general) (1777) ;
sur le phlogistique' (1777) ;