180 
95. PARMENTIER, [A. A.] 
Traité sur la culture et les usages des pommtes de terre, de l 
patate, et de topinambour . . . 1789 
First edition, 
It was Parmentier who introduced the potato as an article of 
~ 
l 
food into France. 
96, Prersoon, C. H. 
Icones pictae specierum rariorum fungorum in synopst ine- 
thodica descriptarum . . . 1803-08. 4 pts. in 1 vol. 
First edition. 
97. PRIESTLEY, JOSEPH. 
Experiments and observations on different kinds of air. 1774. 
First edition. (Vol. 1 only.) 
Priestley, the discoverer of oxygen, made pioneer studies of the 
function of chlorophyll. Ife showed experimentally that plants 
cannot live in an atmosphere of carbon dioxide (“fixed air”), 
i.e., without oxygen. He rejected van Helmont’s term “ gas,” as 
being a needless introduction of a new word, using instead the 
word “air” in a generic sense. 
(Cf. Nos. 41, 92, 98, 101, 108.) 
O8. PRIESTLEY, JOSEPH. 
Experiments and observations relating to various branches of 
natural philosophy. 1779. 
First edition. 
In Section NXVIIL he deseribes a “ quantitative ’’ experiment 
showing that green plants may decrease the amount of carbon 
dioxide (“fixed air”) and increase the amount of oxygen (“ de- 
phlogisticated ”’ air). 
“On the 28th May I introduced a shoot of a strawberry plant 
into a jar containing air vitiated partly by the burning of candles, 
and partly by other means, till one measure of it and one of nitrous 
air occupied the space of 1.62 measures; and on the 10th of June 
this air was so far improved, that when it was tried in the same 
manner, the measures of the test were 1.4, and a candle did not 
immediately go out in it” (page 305). 
(Cf. Nos. 41, 92, 97, 101, 108.) 
