IG JOSEPH PRIESTLEY i 



day; and trusting to mother wit to supply the place 

 of training, and to ingenuity to create apparatus 

 out of washing tubs, he discovered more new gases 

 than all his predecessors put together had done. 

 He laid the foundations of gas analysis; he dis- 

 covered the complementary actions of animal and 

 vegetable life upon the constituents of the atmos- 

 phere; and, finally, he crowned his work, this day 

 one hundred years ago, by the discovery of that 

 " pure dephlogisticated air " to which the French 

 chemists subsequently gave the name of oxygen. 

 Its importance, as the constituent of the atmos- 

 phere which disappears in the processes of respira- 

 tion and combustion, and is restored by green 

 plants growing in sunshine, was proved somewhat 

 later. For these brilliant discoveries, the Koyal 

 Society elected Priestley a fellow and gave him 

 their medal, while the Academies of Paris and St. 

 Petersburg conferred their membership upon him. 

 Edinburgh had made him an honorary doctor of 

 laws at an early period of his career; but, I need 

 hardly add, that a man of Priestley's opinions re- 

 ceived no recognition from the universities of his 

 own country. 



That Priestley's contributions to the knowledge 

 of chemical fact were of the greatest importance, 

 and that they richly deserve all tlie praise that has 

 been awarded to them, is unquestionable; but it 

 must, at the same time, be admitted that he had 

 no comprehension of the deeper significance of his 



