io6 HJSTORr of the SOCIETT. 



rich in the treafures of fcience, and each having much to boafl 

 of its own, may, in the future, as in times paft, be jealous of 

 what is gained by Its neighbour ; it Is pleafant, however, to ob- 

 ferve, that the individuals chiefly concerned were untainted with 

 fuch iniberal paflions. Lavoisier, in fending to Black a copy 

 of his experiments on refpiration, tells him : " It is but jufl you 

 ** fliould be one of the firft to receive information of the pro- 

 " grefs made in a career which you yourfelf had opened, 

 " and in which (he fays) all of us here confider ourfelves as 

 " your difciples *." To this Black replied, with a jufl admi- 

 ration of what the French chemifts were doing, and, as might 

 be expedled from his modefly, without reference to any merit 

 of his own. 



Nearly about the fame time that Black made the difcovery 

 of fixed air, his mind was already at work on the phenomena of 

 latent heat. Among his papers are found fome note-books, in 

 which he had inferted obfervations and queries, medical, chemi- 

 cal, and mifcellaneous,- accompanied with particular references 

 or allufions to times and circuraflances, which ferve to fix dates 

 within certain limits at leaft. In one book, the notes appear to 

 have been written while he was a ftudent at Edinburgh, or can- 

 didate for his degree, in the year 1756 ; at which time he made 

 or publiflied his difcovery of fixed air. In this book are con- 

 tained conjectures and queries relating to the cold produced in 

 the liquefadion of fait and fnow, and in general in the folution 

 of falts in water. Seeming to have the dodrine of latent heat in 

 his view, " Is it not," he fays, in one place, " owing to this 

 " that all bodies, in becoming fluid, have occafion for more 

 " heat than in their foUd ftate ?" In another place he fays, 



" Does 



• " II eft bien jufte, 'Monfieur, que vous foyez un des premiers inform^s des 

 " progres qui fe font dans une cariere que vous avez. ouverte, et dans laquelle nous 

 " nous regardons tous comme vcs difciples." 



