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 and carbon dioxide. His chemical and physical researches were incessant, and most important discoveries were made by this indefatigable genius.

Gay-Lussac discovered the monochloride and trichloride of iodine, and dithionic acid; and "by heating sodium in dry ammonia, Gay-Lussac and Thénard obtained an olive-green, easily-fusible mass, sodamide, hydrogen being separated. This substance with water forms sodium hydroxide and ammonia; with carbon monoxide, it forms sodium cyanide and water; and with dry hydrochloric acid it forms sodium and ammonium chlorides."

Gay-Lussac also worked on the products of the explosion of gunpowder in both confined and open spaces. This was the beginning of the vast province of artillery science; and his elaborate and beautiful researches on the fulminates of silver and mercury were of the highest order. Mercury fulminate is prepared by warming alcohol with nitric acid and mercuric nitrate. It forms silky, lustrous prisms, which explode with the utmost violence upon being heated or struck; hence it is extensively used for percussion caps, dynamite cartridges, etc. The analogous silver fulminate is still more explosive.

In 1831 Gay-Lussac was elected a member of the Chamber of Deputies; and in 1839 he was created a peer of France by King Louis Philippe. The latter's education, it may be remarked, was entrusted to the