Elements of chemical philosophy / by Sir Humphry Davy, LL. D. ... ; part I. vol. I.

  • Davy, Humphry, Sir, 1778-1829.
Date:
1812
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Elements of chemical philosophy / by Sir Humphry Davy, LL. D. ... ; part I. vol. I. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    In 1774, Bayen* shewed that mercury converted into a calx or earth, by the absorption of air, could be revived without the addition of any inflammable substance; and hence he concluded, that there was no necessity for supposing the existence of any peculiar princi- ple of inflammability, in accounting for the calcination of metals. The subject, nearly about the same time, was taken up by Lavoisier, who had been for some time engaged in repeating the experiments of the British philosophers. Bayen formed no opinion respecting the nature of the air produced from the calx of mercury. Lavoisier, in 1775, shewed that it was an air which supported flame and respi- ration better than common air, which he afterwards named oxygene; the same substance that Priestley and Scheele had procured from other metallic substances the year before, and had particularly des- cribedf. Lavoisier discovered that the same air is produced during the re- vivification of metallic calces by charcoal, as that which is emitted during the calcination of limestone; hence he concluded, that this elastic fluid is composed of oxygene and charcoal; and from his experiments on nitrous acid and oil of vitriol, he concluded that this gas entered into the composition of these substances. Dr. Black had demonstrated by a series of beautiful experiments, that when gases are condensed, or when fluids are converted into solids, heat is produced. In combustion, gaseous matter usually assumes the solid or the fluid form. Oxygene gas, said Lavoisier, seems to be compound of the matter of heat, and a basis. In the act of burning, this basis is united to the combustible body, and the heat is evolved. There is no necessity, said this acute philosopher, to suppose any phlogiston, any peculiar principle of inflammability; for all the phenomena may be accounted for without this imaginary existence. Lavoisier must be regarded as one of the most sagacious of the chemical philosophers of the last century; indeed, except Cavendish, there is no other inquirer who can be compared to him for precision of * Journal de Physique, 1774, page 288. f In the Journal de Physique for 1789, Preliminary Discourse, De la Metherie has given an admirable view of the progress of the investigations concerning the gases. See p. 24, &c.