“‘Elp! Police!” Antoine Lavosier called through the streets of Paris pleading for anyone who could help. He had finally found the culprit of fire, nay, all combustion. The firebug, Oxygen! He was here! He was to blame! But proving it to himself was not good enough! He needed someone else to see as well.

“Elp! Police!” He continued to call, but his plea fell on deaf ears for the streets of Paris were quiet that night. It would not be until 1778 that he would expose this knave, O2, for who he really was.

Artist notes: Antoine Lavoisier is widely considered to be the Father of modern chemistry. In other words, he did some pretty amazing things with chemicals. Not only did Lavoisier discover Oxygen, and that it was the main thing responsible for fire - apart from the people who light them of course - he also categorised all the chemicals in the world. He made labels for them, and weighed them, and looked at them to see how they were made. He put all this information in to a thing called “The Periodic Table of Elements.” He also helped invent the Metric System. You know, Centimetres, and Metres and so on? So next time you measure something (or see a fire), think of Lavoisier.