Volume 1

Experiments and observations on different kinds of air, and other branches of natural philosophy, connected with the subject ... / being the former six volumes abridged and methodized, with many additions. By Joseph Priestley.

  • Priestley, Joseph, 1733-1804.
Date:
1790
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Experiments and observations on different kinds of air, and other branches of natural philosophy, connected with the subject ... / being the former six volumes abridged and methodized, with many additions. By Joseph Priestley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    64/482 (page 2)
    1 the Introduction. -Sett. L i be able to read this treatife, and, with proper at> tendon, to underftand every part of it. That the air which confdtutes. the atmofphere in which we live has weight, and that it is elaftic, or confifts of a compreflible and dilatable fluid, were fome of the earlieft difcoveries that were made af- ter the dawning of philofophy in this weftern part of the world. AlfoVan Helmont, and other chymifts who fuc- ceeded him, were acquainted with the property of fome 'Vapours to fuffocate, and extinguifh flame, and of others to be ignited ; effedts, indeed, which could not but have been known in all ages. But they had no idea that the fubftances (if, indeed, they knew that they were fubftances, and not merely pro- perties, and affections of bodies which produced thofe effedts) were capable of being feparately exhibited in the form of a permanently elaftic vapour, not con- denfable by cold, to which I give the name of air± any more than the thing that conftitutes JmelL In fadt, they knew nothing at all of any air befidesr common air, and therefore they applied the term ter, no other fubftance whatever. That elaftic fluids, differing eflentially from the* aif of the atmofphere, but agreeing with it in the properties of weight, elafticity, and tranfparency, might be generated from folid fubftances, was dis- covered by Mr. Boyle, through two remarkable 4 kinds