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177
The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry
·
M. M. Pattison Muir
121
This
proof
was
not
forthcoming
until
about
a
century
after
the
publication
of
Mayow's
work.
The
experiments
which
furnished
the
proof
were
rendered
possible
by
a
notable
discovery
made
on
the
1st
of
August
1774,
by
the
celebrated
Joseph
Priestley.
Priestley
prepared
many
"airs"
of
different
kinds:
by
the
actions
of
acids
on
metals,
by
allowing
vegetables
to
decay,
by
heating
beef,
mutton,
and
other
animal
substances,
and
by
other
methods.
He
says:
"Having
procured
a
lens
of
twelve
inches
diameter
and
twenty
inches
focal
distance,
I
proceeded
with
great
alacrity
to
examine,
by
the
help
of
it,
what
kind
of
air
a
great
variety
of
substances,
natural
and
factitious,
would
yield....
With
this
apparatus,
after
a
variety
of
other
experiments....
on
the
1st
of
August,
1774,
I
endeavoured
to
extract
air
from
mercurius
calcinatus
per
se;
and
I
presently
found
that,
by
means
of
this
lens,
air
was
expelled
from
it
very
readily.
Having
got
about
three
or
four
times
as
much
as
the
bulk
of
my
materials,
I
admitted
water
to
it,
and
found
that
it
was
not
imbibed
by
it.
But
what
surprised
me
more
than
I
can
well
express
was,
that
a
candle
burned
in
this
air
with
a
remarkably
vigorous
flame....
I
was
utterly
at
a
loss
how
to
account
for
it."
The
apparatus
used
by
Priestley,
in
his
experiments
on
different
kinds
of
air,
is
represented
in
Fig.
XVI.,
which
is
reduced
from
an
illustration
in
Priestley's
book
on
Airs.
Priestley
had
made
a
discovery
which
was
destined
to
change
Alchemy
into
Chemistry.
But
he
did
not
know
what
his
discovery
meant.
It
was
reserved
for
the
greatest
of
all
chemists,
Antoine
Lavoisier,
to
use
the
fact
stumbled
on
by
Priestley.
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