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First edition of Priestley's landmark work which contains "the first printed reference to the gas that was ultimately called oxygen" (Schoefield, Enlightened Joseph Priestley, p. 106). Priestley's discovery of oxygen heralded "the beginning of a revolution in chemistry as profound as the revolution in physics that Newton had initiated a century before" (Tanford, Ben Franklin, p. 47). Priestley went to Paris in 1774 and told Lavoisier at dinner that he had discovered dephlogisticated air (oxygen), at which Priestley reported "all the company, and Mr. and Mrs. Lavoisier as much as any, expressed great surprise" (Partington, Short History, p. 126). Priestley's 'Account' opens with his March 15 letter to Sir John Pringle, read to the Royal Society on March 25, in which Priestley writes of using a "large burning lens" to procure air "five or six times better than common air." With this "historic experiment . . . [he] thus discovered oxygen . . . and by suggesting that it would be particularly good for the lungs foreshadowed our use of oxygen tents . . . Lavoisier repeated the experiment and ultimately gave the substance its modern name - oxygen" (PMM 217). Priestley's second letter to Pringle, dated March 25, expands on his experiments that account "for the existence of so much fixed air [carbon dioxide] in the atmosphere." On April 1, Priestley wrote to Richard Price about 'the pure air I discovered in London.' An extract of that letter was read to the Royal Society on 6 April and is also contained in the present paper. While it "is generally agreed that Scheele had discovered the gas sometime between 1771 and 1773 . . . his work was not published until after Priestley's account" (Schofield, 106-7). West agrees, stating: "Priestley was clearly the first person to describe the production of oxygen" (Essays, 134). Indeed, Carl Wilhelm Scheele's work first appeared two years after Priestley's, in his 'Chemische Abhandlung von der Luft und dem Feuer' (Upsala & Leipzig, 1777). Priestley's first paper on "different kinds of air" appeared in 1772, and his many experiments led to his three-volume 'Experiments and Observations on different kinds of air' (1774-1777). Dibner 40; PMM 217. No copies of this paper in its original context as part of a complete journal volume located in auction records. 4to, pp. vii, 165, [1, blank], vii, 167-574, with 14 plates (numbered 1-3 and I-XI). Contemporary calf, spine gilt (worn, spine ends chipped, joints cracked but firm, spine label missing). Very good condition internally. Seller Inventory # ABE-1607014253443
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