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.