About this time a young gentleman of Dijon had taken into his house an adept, who offered, upon being furnished with the requisite materials, to produce gold in abundance; but, after six months of expensive and tedious operations (during which period the roguish pretender had secretly distilled many oils, &c., which he disposed of for his own profit), the gentleman beginning to doubt the sincerity of his instructer, dismissed him from his service and sold the whole of his apparatus and materials to Morveau for a trifling sum.
Soon after he repaired to Paris, to visit the scientific establishments of that metropolis, and to purchase preparations and apparatus which he still wanted to enable him to pursue with effect his favourite study. For this purpose he applied to Beaumé, then one of the most conspicuous of the French chemists. Pleased with his ardour, Beaumé inquired what courses of chemistry he had attended. "None," was the answer.—"How then could you have learned to make experiments, and above all, how could you have acquired the requisite dexterity?"—"Practice," replied the young chemist, "has been my master; melted crucibles and broken retorts my tutors."—"In that case," said Beaumé, "you have not learned, you have invented."
About this time Dr. Chardenon read a paper before the Dijon Academy on the causes of the augmentation of weight which metals experience when calcined. He combated the different explanations which had been already advanced, and then proceeded to show that it might be accounted for in a satisfactory manner by the abstraction of phlogiston. This drew the attention of Morveau to the subject: he made a set of experiments a few months afterwards, and read a paper on the phenomena of the air during combustion. It was soon after that he made a set of experiments on the time taken by different substances to absorb or emit a given quantity of heat. These experiments, if properly followed out, would have led to the discovery of specific heat; but in his hands they seem to have been unproductive.
In the year 1772 he published a collection of scientific essays under the title of "Digressions Académiques." The memoirs on phlogiston, crystallization, and solution, found in this book deserve particular attention, and show the superiority of Morveau over most of the chemists of the time.
About this time an event happened which deserves to be stated. It had been customary in one of the churches of Dijon to bury considerable numbers of dead bodies. From these an infectious exhalation had proceeded, which had brought on a malignant disorder, and threatened the inhabitants of Dijon with something like the plague. All attempts to put an end to this infectious matter had failed, when Morveau tried the following method with complete success: A mixture of common salt and sulphuric acid in a wide-mouthed vessel was put upon chafing-dishes in various parts of the church. The doors and windows were closed and left in this state for twenty-four hours. They were then thrown open, and the chafing-dishes with the mixtures removed. Every remains of the bad smell was gone, and the church was rendered quite clean and free from infection. The same process was tried soon after in the prisons of Dijon, and with the same success. Afterwards chlorine gas was substituted for muriatic acid gas, and found still more efficacious. The present practice is to employ chloride of lime, or chloride of soda, for the purpose of fumigating infected apartments, and the process is found still more effectual than the muriatic acid gas, as originally employed by Morveau. The nitric acid fumes, proposed by Dr. Carmichael Smith, are also efficacious, but the application of them is much more troublesome and more expensive than of chloride of lime, which costs very little.
In the year 1774 it occurred to Morveau, that a course of lectures on chemistry, delivered in his native city, might be useful. Application being made to the proper authorities, the permission was obtained, and the necessary funds for supplying a laboratory granted. These lectures were begun on the 29th of April, 1776, and seem to have been of the very best kind. Every thing was stated with great clearness, and illustrated by a sufficient number of experiments. His fame now began to extend, and his name to be known to men of science in every part of Europe; and, in consequence, he began to experience the fate of almost all eminent men—to be exposed to the attacks of the malignant and the envious. The experiments which he exhibited to determine the properties of carbonic acid gas drew upon him the animadversions of several medical men, who affirmed that this gas was nothing else than a peculiar state of sulphuric acid. Morveau answered these animadversions in two pamphlets, and completely refuted them.
About this time he got metallic conductors erected on the house of the Academy at Dijon. On this account he was attacked violently for his presumption in disarming the hand of the Supreme Being. A multitude of fanatics assembled to pull down the conductors, and they would probably have done much mischief, had it not been for the address of M. Maret, the secretary, who assured them that the astonishing virtue of the apparatus resided in the gilded point, which had purposely been sent from Rome by the holy father! Will it excite any surprise, that within less than twenty years after this the mass of the French people not only renounced the Christian religion, and the spiritual dominion of the pope, but declared themselves atheists!
In 1777 Morveau published the first volume of a course of chemistry, which was afterwards followed by three other volumes, and is known by the name of "Elémens de Chimie de l'Académie de Dijon." This book was received with universal approbation, and must have contributed very much to increase the value of his lectures. Indeed, a text-book is essential towards a successful course of lectures: it puts it in the power of the students to understand the lecture if they be at the requisite pains; and gives them a means of clearing up their difficulties, when any such occur. I do not hesitate to say, that a course of chemical lectures is twice as valuable when the students are furnished with a good text-book, as when they are left to interpret the lectures by their own unassisted exertions.
Soon after he undertook the establishment of a manufacture of saltpetre upon a large scale. For this he received the thanks of M. Necker, who was at that time minister of finance, in the name of the King of France. This manufactory he afterwards gave up to M. Courtois, whose son still carries it on, and is advantageously known to the public as the discoverer of iodine.
His next object was to make a collection of minerals, and to make himself acquainted with the science of mineralogy. All this was soon accomplished. In 1777 he was charged to examine the slate-quarries and the coal-mines of Burgundy, for which purpose he performed a mineralogical tour through the province. In 1779 he discovered a lead-mine in that country, and a few years afterwards, when the attention of chemists had been drawn to sulphate of barytes and its base, by the Swedish chemists, he sought for it in Burgundy, and found it in considerable quantity at Thôte. This enabled him to draw up a description of the mineral, and to determine the characters of the base, to which he gave the name of barote; afterwards altered to that of barytes. This paper was published in the third volume of the Memoirs of the Dijon Academy. In this paper he describes his method of decomposing sulphate of barytes, by heating it with charcoal—a method now very frequently followed.