The Sun.
London, England, 1862-10-03 00:00:00

THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION.

The total visitors to the Exhibition during the
last two days have only amounted to 78,042, of
which 6,980 have been season-ticket holders, and
71,062 by payment or shilling day tickets. Yester-
terday the attendance was at its lowest ebbin point
of receipts, the money taken at the doors barely
amounting to £1,400. Even the wretched weather
will scarcely account for this falling off. Its ex-
planation may perhaps, however, be found in the
wide-spread belief that the time of closing is still
undecided, or at earliest only likely to take place at
some indefinite period in the middle of winter. Those
who are putting off to the last minute, under this
impression, will find their mistake out when too
late for remedy. During only 16 more days will
the building remain open to shilling visitors. In the
subsequent fortnight allowed into November, when
the exhibitors will be permitted to sell their goods,
the tariff for admission will, we believe, in no case
be less than 2s. 6d. Those who wish to see it at a
shilling may depend, therefore, that their only
chance is during the next 16 days.

LAVOISIER.—At yesterday's sitting of the Aca-
demy of Sciences, M. Dumas, in presenting the second
volume of Lavoisier's works, just issued from the press at
the expense and under the auspices of the State, read a
highly interesting and touching. notice of the labours of
that great man. Before him, chemists still followed the
theory of Stahl, according to which what we now call com-
bustion, or the absorption of oxygen, caused the evolution
of an imaginary substance which he called phlogiston.
Thus, when a metal, such as tin or lead for instance, was
covered with a pellicle while in a state of fusion, it was, said
to have. lost a part of its phlogiston, instead of having, as
Lavoisier showed, absorbed a quantity of oxygen. When
Stahl published his theory of phlogiston in the 17th cen-
tury, it certainly was an immense step taken in the right
direction ; for had he only imagined an absorption instead
of an evolution, he would infallibly have discovered oxygen ;
and his theory undoubtedly enabled chemists to give
their science a certain degree of organisation which it
lacked before. But for Lavoisier was reserved the glory
of discovering oxygen and the wonderful theory of com-
bustion. M. Dumas traced the almost romantic history of
this discovery with touching effect. " A few weeks before
his death," he said, " when ho was already resigned to the
loss of all his property, but still hoped to save his life, and
was considering what profession he might embrace to pro-
cure his family their daily bread, he protested, in solemnly
bidding adieu to science, against the tendency of the public
to confound the slow propagators of a truth with him who
discovered it." Lavoisier, in fact, was in danger of being
robbed of the honour he deserved. He had conceived his
system, and nearly completed it, within 1772 and 1777; yet
it was only in 1786 that Fourcroy began to teach it ; Cuy-
ton de Morveau adopted it later still, and Beithellet wrote
according to the system of phlogiston as late as 1785. La-
voisier then, just before his death, resolved to publish the
contents of a sealed parcel he had deposited with the Aca-
demy of Sciences 20 years before, and on which he had
been silent until then. It bore the date of the IsttohfoNr
hovad.,
1772, and contained the announcement that
remarked an increase of weight, and thereforetani
absorp-
tion, and not a loss, in sulphur when con-
ceivingtsdanauthat,un
had experimented on phosphorus,
emitted a quantity
the same might be the case in
dbfouothrnerdstuhbesstaanancee.s,anh(oi
lastly, that litharge, on
being
ginous than the litharge
more voluminous
of the most astonishing anti
of air 1,000 times E.a
Such was the origin
of
effected in a science!
fruitful revolutions ever