Gay Lussac

Gay-Lussac, Joseph Louis, born at St. Leonard, Haute Vienne, France, in 1778, his father being a high legal official, was sent to the Ecole Polytechnique, where he showed so great an aptitude for physics and chemistry that Berthollet chose him to be his assistant. His first labours were directed to experiments on the dilatation of gases, and in 1804 he undertook two balloon ascents in order to obtain data as to terrestrial magnetism and the chemical constituents of the air. In 1805 and 1806 he accompanied A. von Humboldt in a tour through Switzerland, Italy, and Germany, returning to Paris just in time to secure his election to a vacancy in the Academie des Sciences. He next engaged with Thenard in investigating the properties of potassium, sodium, and boron, his discoveries being parallel to those of Davy, and in 1809 a similar honourable rivalry sprang up as regards the analysis of oxy-muriatic acid gas. In the same year he published the result of his observations as to the laws governing the combination of gases and the ratio borne by the volume of gaseous compounds to that of their primary elements. In 1811 appeared his Recherches Physico-Chimiques. This was followed by his important discoveries as to the constitution of hydrocyanic acid and the characteristics of iodine. The last part of his career was devoted to practical inquiries into such subjects as the bleaching action of chlorine, the assaying of precious metals, the processes of fermentation, and the manufacture of gunpowder. He lectured assiduously in various schools, and published his Cours de Physique and Cours de Chimie, working also with a number of private pupils, the most illustrious of whom was Liebig. He was made a peer of France in 1839. In lucidity, accuracy, and honesty, Gay-Lussac is surpassed by no other investigator. He died in 1850.