sculptor Antide Pechine, who has perfectly understood his work, and
has represented the inventor at the moment at which he observes a
flame start from a glass balloon in which he had heated some sawdust.
The attitude is graceful and the expression of the face is meditative
and intelligent. The statue, which is ten feet in height, was
exhibited at the last _Salon_. It was cast at the Barbedienne works.

It would be impossible to applaud too much the homage that has just
been rendered to the inventor of gas lighting, for Philip Lebon, like
so many other benefactors of humanity, has not by far the celebrity
that ought to belong to him. When we study the documents that relate
to his existence, when we follow the flashes of genius that darted
through his brain, when we see the obstacles that he had to conquer,
and when we thoroughly examine his great character and the lofty
sentiments that animated him, we are seized with admiration for the
humble worker who endowed his country with so great a benefit.

Lebon was born at Brachay on the 29th of May, 1767. At the age of
twenty, he was admitted to the School of Bridges and Roads, where he
soon distinguished himself by his ingenious and investigating turn of
mind. His first labors were in connection with the steam engine, then
in its infancy, and on April 18, 1792, the young engineer obtained a
national award of $400 to continue the experiments that he had begun
on the improvement of this apparatus.

It was at about the same epoch that Lebon was put upon the track of
lighting by gas, during a sojourn at Brachay. He one day threw a
handful of sawdust into a glass vial that he heated over a fire. He
observed issuing from the bottle a dense smoke which suddenly caught
fire and produced a beautiful luminous flame. The inventor understood