To face the Title.EXPERIMENTS AND OBSERVATIONS ON DIFFERENT KINDS OF AIR.
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Quamobrem, si qua est erga Creatorem humilitas, si qua operumejus reverentia et magnificatio, si qua charitas in homines, sierga necessitates et ærumnas humanas relevandas studium, siquis amor veritatis in naturalibus, et odium tenebrarum, etintellectus purificandi desiderium; orandi sunt homines iterumatque iterum, ut, missis philosophiis istis volaticis etpreposteris, quæ theses hypothesibus anterposuerunt, etexperientiam captivam duxerunt, atque de operibus deitriumpharunt, summisse, et cum veneratione quadam, ad volumencreaturarum evolvendum accedant; atque in eo moram faciant,meditentur, et ab opinionibus abluti et mundi, caste et integreversentur.——In interpretatione ejus eruenda nulli operæparcant, sed strenue procedant, persistant, immoriantur.
Lord Bacon in Instauratione Magna.
EXPERIMENTS
AND
OBSERVATIONS
ON DIFFERENT KINDS OF
AIR.
By JOSEPH PRIESTLEY, LL.D. F.R.S.
The SECOND EDITION Corrected.
Fert animus Causas tantarum expromere rerum;
Immensumque aperitur opus.
Lucan
LONDON:
Printed for J. Johnson, No. 72, in St. Paul's Church-Yard.
MDCCLXXV.
TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
THE EARL OF SHELBURNE,
THIS TREATISE IS
WITH THE GREATEST GRATITUDE
AND RESPECT,
INSCRIBED,
BY HIS LORDSHIP's
MOST OBLIGED,
AND OBEDIENT
HUMBLE SERVANT,
J. PRIESTLEY.
Transcriber's Note: Footnotes have been moved to the end of the chapter.The errata listed at the end of the book have been corrected in thetext.
THE PREFACE.
One reason for the present publication has been the favourable receptionof those of my Observations on different kinds of air, which werepublished in the Philosophical Transactions for the year 1772, and thedemand for them by persons who did not chuse, for the sake of thosepapers only, to purchase the whole volume in which they were contained.Another motive was the additions to my observations on this subject,in consequence of which my papers grew too large for such a publicationas the Philosophical Transactions.
Contrary, therefore, to my intention, expressed PhilosophicalTransactions, vol. 64. p. 90, but with the approbation of the President,and of my friends in the society,[Pg vi] I have determined to send them nomore papers for the present on this subject, but to make a separate andimmediate publication of all that I have done with respect to it.
Besides, considering the attention which, I am informed, is now given tothis subject by philosophers in all parts of Europe, and the rapidprogress that has already been made, and may be expected to be made inthis branch of knowledge, all unnecessary delays in the publication ofexperiments relating to it are peculiarly unjustifiable.
When, for the sake of a little more reputation, men can keep broodingover a new fact, in the discovery of which they might, possib