ive equipment, Lavoisier was forced find other means to make up for his monetary deficiencies.
             Then, in 1771, Lavoisier married Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze, who was barely fourteen years old, but a beautiful and intelligent girl. She was the daughter of an executive that collected taxes for the government. She soon began to collaborate with her husband in his scientific work, translating English works into French for him, and illustrating his works.
             When Lavoisier began his study of chemistry, the subject could hardly be called a science. It had accumulated a large mass of empirical information, but its theoretical basis was uncertain and its formal language was in confusion. There were very few standards that were set. There was no agreement upon which substances where compounds, and which were elements. There were very few substances with precisely known chemical compositions. The major classes of chemical entities (acids, metals, salts, alkali metals, alkaline earth metals) were easily distinguished, but there gap when it came to the knowledge of gasses.
             The most widely accepted theory in chemistry was one that explained combustion on the basis of a "fire-matter" called phlogiston. The Phlogiston theory states that when a substance burned, it lost a hypothetical weightless or ne
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