38 LOEWKNFELD, Contributions to tJie History of Science. 



prosecute the experiments farther, and if anything 

 materially new should occur to me, I shall send you a 

 supplemental paper on the subject. 



Mr. Watt wishes to withdraw his paper, but he is 

 now engaged in a course of experiments, in which he 

 thinks he shall prove the actual conversion of water 

 into air, though mine certainly prove no such thing. 



When I see the young man who made the air- 

 gun, I shall mention to him your desire of having it. 

 It is very generous in you, and worthy of a President 

 of the Royal Society, to interest yourself, as you do, 

 in all scientific pursuits, however foreign to your own. 

 It is a wide and noble field that we are employed in, 

 and the truly liberal will rejoice in, and promote, each 

 other's success. 



I thank you for your intelligence from Paris. For 

 my own part, I wish to see either Crawford's^' or 

 M. Lavoisier's FACTS unexceptionally ascertained by 

 competent witnesses. 



I have just heard from Mr. Kirwan,'*- and shall 

 write to him as soon as I have anything worth com- 

 municating. In the meantime I wish you would 

 inform him that I have in a glazed earthenware retort 

 got 787 ounce measures of dephlogisticated air from 

 TWO OUNCES of purified nitre. 



With the greatest respect, 



I am, dear sir, yours sincerely, 



J. Priestley. 

 Jo-eph Banks, Bart., Soho Square, London. 



*i Adair Crawfoid (1748— 1795), Professor of Chemistry at Woolwicli. 

 Had published in 1799 'Experiments and Observations on Animal Heat, 

 and the Inflammation of Combustible Bodies, being an attempt to resolve 

 these phenomena into a general law of nature.' 



•*- Richard Kirwan (1733— 1812). Famous chemist. Adversary of 

 Lavoisier. His 'Essay on Phlogiston' (1779) was translated into French 

 by Madame Lavoisier. 



