LAVOISIER. 299 



StaH.* But it must be added that he was wholly 

 ignorant of the nature of the air absorbed. He seems 

 to have been deceived by the quantity of fixed air 

 which minium contains, and to have hastily supposed 

 this air to be the cause of calcination, without exam- 

 ining the air in which he performed the more useful 

 and converse experiment. 



It is singular how very near M. Lavoisier came in 

 these inquiries to two discoveries of first-rate import- 

 ance. He could not have examined with any care the 

 residue of the air in which his calcinations were per- 

 formed, without discovering the composition of the 

 atmosphere ; nor could he have fully examined the air 

 given out in the reduction of calces to their reguline, 

 or metallic state, without discovering oxygen. It was 

 reserved for Dr. Priestley, two years later, to make 

 both these capital discoveries. 



A similar remark arises upon the next inquiry of 

 any importance in which M. Lavoisier was engaged. 

 For we may pass over his experiments on the use of 

 alcohol in the analysis of mineral waters, as he admits 

 that the subject was familiar to chemists, having been 

 treated at length by Macquer. It may, however, be 

 observed in passing, that he claims as a discovery the 

 proposition that alcohol attacks salts differently when 

 mixed with different proportions of water; and also, 

 that nothing can be more crude than his notions of the 

 connections between the salts and the mineral king- 

 dom for a large portion of his Memoir is devoted to 

 prove that there can only be three mineral alkalis, 

 soda, calcareous earth, and what he calls the base of 

 Epsom salts, which is magnesia, and two mineral acids, 

 the vitriolic and muriatic. These propositions were as 

 wide of the truth as possible, and, apparently, were 



* It is truly painful to find the determination of 'French writers never 

 to take the trouble of giving the names of foreigners with any accuracy. 

 Lavoisier always calls Stahl either Stalh or Sthal, and never once gives 

 his right name. 



