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177
The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry
·
M. M. Pattison Muir
132
[7]
Boyle
said,
in
1689,
"I
mean
by
elements
...
certain
primitive
and
simple,
or
perfectly
unmixed
bodies;
which
not
being
made
of
any
other
bodies,
or
of
one
another,
are
the
ingredients
of
which
all
those
called
perfectly
mixt
bodies
are
immediately
compounded,
and
into
which
they
are
ultimately
resolved."
Let
us
consider
some
of
the
work
of
Lavoisier
in
this
direction.
I
select
his
experimental
examination
of
the
interactions
of
metals
and
acids.
Many
experimenters
had
noticed
that
gases
(or
airs,
as
they
were
called
up
till
near
the
end
of
the
18th
century)
are
generally
produced
when
metals
are
dissolving
in
acids.
Most
of
those
who
noticed
this
said
that
the
gases
came
from
the
dissolving
metals;
Lavoisier
said
they
were
produced
by
the
decomposition
of
the
acids.
In
order
to
study
the
interaction
of
nitric
acid
and
mercury,
Lavoisier
caused
a
weighed
quantity
of
the
metal
to
react
with
a
weighed
quantity
of
the
acid,
and
collected
the
gas
which
was
produced;
when
all
the
metal
had
dissolved,
he
evaporated
the
liquid
until
a
white
solid
was
obtained;
he
heated
this
solid
until
it
was
changed
to
the
red
substance
called,
at
that
time,
red
precipitate,
and
collected
the
gas
produced.
Finally,
Lavoisier
strongly
heated
the
red
precipitate;
it
changed
to
a
gas,
which
he
collected,
and
mercury,
which
he
weighed.
The
weight
of
the
mercury
obtained
by
Lavoisier
at
the
end
of
this
series
of
changes
was
the
same,
less
a
few
grains,
as
the
weight
of
the
mercury
which
he
had
caused
to
react
with
the
nitric
acid.
The
gas
obtained
during
the
solution
of
the
metal
in
the
acid,
and
during
the
decomposition
of
the
white
solid
by
heat,
was
the
same
as
a
gas
which
had
been
prepared
by
Priestley
and
called
by
him
nitrous
air;
and
the
gas
obtained
by
heating
the
red
precipitate
was
found
to
be
oxygen.
Lavoisier
then
mixed
measured
volumes
of
oxygen
and
"nitrous
air,"
standing
over
water;
a
red
gas
was
formed,
and
dissolved
in
the
water,
and
Lavoisier
proved
that
the
water
now
contained
nitric
acid.
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