198 TRANSACTIONS OF THE [MAY 7, 
APRIL 5TH, 1778. 
Dear Boutton:—I am sorry the infernal divinities who visit 
mankind with diseases, and are therefore at perpetual war with 
doctors, should have prevented my seeing all your great men at 
Soho to-day. Lord! what inventions, what wit, what rhetoric, 
metaphysical, mechanical, and pyrotechnical, will be on the 
wing, bandied like a shuttlecock from one to another of your 
troup of philosophers ! while poor I, I by myself I, imprison’d 
in a post-chaise, am joggl’d, and jostl’d, and bump’d, and 
bruised along the King’s highroad to make war upon a stomach- 
ache or a fever.” .. . [Signed | Erasmus DARWIN. 
The society evidently served the purpose of a scientific ex- 
change, each member contributing at the monthly meeting re- 
sults of his own observations, and reporting news from without 
the circle. Before the establishment of weekly journals of sci- 
ence, this exchange was the natural means of intercommunica- 
tion, just as the Athenians gathered on Mars Hill ‘to tell or 
to hear some new thing” in the political world. The society 
seems further to have been chosen by persons from a distance as 
a channel for announcing their own discoveries or those of 
others to scientists who would appreciate and publish them. 
James Watt wrote to the Irish chemist Kirwan as follows: 
BIRMINGHAM, Nov. 14th, 1783. 
DeAR Sir:—Your obliging communication of Mr. Scheele’s 
process of making the Prussian acid gave me great pleasure, 
and, according to your desire, I communicated it to our Lunar 
Society last Monday, who desire me to return to you their 
thanks... . JAMES WATT. 
When Dr. Priestley dissolved his connection with Lord 
Sheiburne, and removed to Birmingham in 1780, he was warmly 
welcomed by the members of the Lunar Society as a valuable 
acquisition. He had corresponded with Boulton, and was al- 
ready celebrated for his publications and his discoveries in gas 
chemistry. His discovery of nitric oxide dates from 1772; that 
of ammonia, hydrochloric acid, and oxygen from 1774; sul- 
phurous acid gas and silicon-tetrafluoride, 1775; and nitrous 
oxide (laughing gas), 1776. He had published three volumes 
of his ‘‘ Experiments and Observations on Air,” and was en- 
gaged on a fourth. Priestley’s love of polemics in metaphysics 
and theology was reflected in his work in science, and though 
unassuming and gentle in disposition, his advent infused new 
vigor into the society, and henceforth gave a chemical turn to: 
the weighty discussions of the feasting philosophers. 
In his autobiography, Priestley refers to these meetings in the 
following language: 
