Volume 1

A general system of chemical knowledge; and its application to the phenomena of nature and art / By A.F. Fourcroy. Translated from the original French, by William Nicholson.

  • Fourcroy, Antoine-François de, comte, 1755-1809.
Date:
1804
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A general system of chemical knowledge; and its application to the phenomena of nature and art / By A.F. Fourcroy. Translated from the original French, by William Nicholson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    10/542 (page 6)
    preliminary difcuffion ; but (hall give fome notices of the principal difcoveries in Che~ miftry, made fince the publication of thefe Elements. There is perhaps no fubjeft in the ex ten» five range of the fcience of Chemiftry, on which praftical writers are lets agreed than they are on the nature and number of fimple bodies. Fourcroy admits thofe only into that clafs which have relation to combuftion, while a considerable number of Chemifts include amongft them all thofe which can- not be decompofed or reduced to their con- stituent principles, however analogous they may be to bodies which are known to be compounds. Dr. Thomfon, of Edinburgh, in the Remarks on Combuftion, with which he favoured me for publication in the Journal of Natural Philofophy, Chemiftry, and the Arts, is difpofed to reduce the number of the fimple combuftibles admitted by Fourcroy, and to exclude gold, filver, and mercury. His reafons are, “ that they do not burn in air, how high foever the temperature is ; neither do they detonate with red-hot nitre, nor exhibit any appearance of combuftion m