Transcriber Notes:
Uncertain or antiquated spellings or ancient words were not corrected.
The illustrations have been moved so that they do not break up paragraphs and so that they are next to the text they illustrate.
Errors in punctuation and inconsistent hyphenation were not corrected unless otherwise noted.
Typographical errors have been silently corrected but other variations in spelling and punctuation remain unaltered.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Memoirs for a General History of the Air; Shaw’s Abridgment of Boyle’s works, edition 1725, vol. iii. p. 26.
[2] “Suspicions about some hidden qualities of the Air,” ibid. p. 77.
[3] A Free Inquiry into the Vulgar Notion of Nature; Prefatory remarks.
[4] Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air, vol. ii. By Joseph Priestley, LL.D., F.R.S. Second edition (1776), p. 29.
[5] Chemical Treatise on Air and Fire (1777), § 3.
[6] Loc. cit. p. 46.
[7] Loc. cit. p. 55.
[8] Loc. cit. p. 94.
[9] Loc. cit. p. 102.
[10] The accurate translation of Scheele’s Treatise publishedby the Alembic Club (William F. Clay, 1894) has been made use of here.
[11] § 4.
[12] § 5.
[13] § 16.
[14] § 16.
[15] § 22.
[16] § 23.
[17] § 24.
[18] § 29.
[19] § 80.
[20] § 87.
[21] § 93.
[22] This, as previously remarked, had already been noticed. In Maquer’s Élémens de Chymie-pratique, published in 1752, a work which ran through many editions, we read (p. 307): “There happens during all these calcinations, and especially in that of lead, a very strange phenomenon for which it is very difficult to assign a reason. It is that those bodies, which lose no small proportion of their substance, whether by the dissipation of phlogiston, or because part of the metal is exhaled as vapour, yield calces increased in weight after calcination; and this increase is by no means inconsiderable.... Physicists and chemists have devised many ingenious systems to account for this phenomenon, but no one of them is absolutely satisfactory. As no well-established theory has been devised, we shall not undertake to attempt an explanation of this singular fact.”
[23] Brit. Assoc. Report, 1839, p. 64.
[24] Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air, vol. i. p. 181, and vol. ii. p. 238. Second edition, 1776.
[25] Proc. Roy. Soc. vol. liii. p. 134.
[26] Proc. Roy. Soc. vol. lix. p. 68.
Phil. Trans. vol. clxxxvi. p. 227.
[27] Compt. rend. vol. cxxi. p. 394.
[28] Méchanique céleste, vol. v. p. 123.
[29] Proc. Roy. Soc. vol. lix. p. 63.
[30] These considerations would hold on the assumption that no combination takes place between chlorine and bromine.
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg™ License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.