218 Anali/tical Investigation of a Formula ivhich shall express 



discovery of oxygen gas. This charge, often preferred and 

 never answered, would not have been revived in this place, 

 but for the claim so recently and indiscreetly advanced by M. 

 Victor Cousin. To the credit of Dr. Priestley it may be ob- 

 served, that in asserting his own right, he exercised more 

 forbearance than could reasonably have been expected under 

 such circumstances. In an unpublished letter to a friend, he 

 thus alludes to the subject of M. Lavoisier's plagiarism. 

 " He" (M. Lavoisier) " is an Intendant of the Finances, and 

 has much public business, but finds leisure for various philo- 

 sophical pursuits, for which he is exceedingly well qualified. 

 He ought to have acknowledged that my giving him an account 

 of the air I had got from Meracrius Calcinatus, and buying a 

 quantity of M. Cadet while I was at Paris, led him to try what 

 air it yielded, which he did presently after I left. I have, 

 however, bai'ely hinted at this in my second volume *." The 

 communication alluded to was made by Dr. Priestley to M. 

 Lavoisier in October, 1774; and the Memoir, in which the 

 latter assumes to himself the discovery that mercurius calci- 

 natus (red oxide of mercury) affords oxygen gas when distilled 

 per se, was not read to the Academy of Sciences before April, 

 1775f. In evincing so little irritability about his own claim, 

 and leaving its vindication with calm and just confidence to 

 posterity, the English philosopher has lost nothing of the 

 honour of that discovery which is now awarded to him by 

 men of science of every country as solely and undividedly 

 his own. 



XXVIII. Ajialytical Investigation of a Formula tehich shall 

 express the relative Importance of a certain number of the 

 Boroughs in Englajid and Wales. By A Correspondent. 



'T'HE Reform Bill, now under discussion in the House of 

 -■- Commons, requires that a certain number of the smaller 

 borouffhs of England and Wales shall be arranged in the 

 order of their importance, with respect to the number ot houses 

 they contain, and the amount of assessed taxes they paid in 

 the year ending April 1831, jointly. 



The proposed arrangement presents no difficult}', nor does 

 it involve any political question by which men's miiuls may be 

 biased; it is pui-ely a matter of calculation, and yet different 



* Letter to the late Mr. Henry, dated Calne, Dec, 31, 1775. 

 t See an Abstract of this Memoir in the Journal de Rozier, Mai, 1775. 



persons 



