LAVOISIEK. 305 



printed a Memoir on Nitrous Acid, in which ample 

 justice is done to Dr. Priestley's discoveries, and the 

 experiments recounted as made by M. Lavoisier, are 

 admitted to have all been Dr. Priestley's suggestions ; 

 he himself only claiming to have drawn more correct 

 inferences from them. Among these inferences, there 

 is only the one that nitrous acid consists of oxygen and 

 nitrous gas ; but no suspicion of its real composition, 

 afterwards discovered by Mr. Cavendish to be the 

 union of azote and oxygen, is even hinted at. It is 

 also material to note, that in this paper not a word is 

 said of the claim to having discovered oxygen. In 

 1777 a paper was printed by him on the combustion 

 of phosphorus with " air eminemment respirable," to 

 form phosphoric acid ; that air is said to be " by Dr. 

 Priestley termed dephlogisticated air," and still nothing 

 is said of the claim to its joint discovery ; but in p. 187 

 he speaks of the " experiences de Dr. Priestley et les 

 miennes," on precipitate per se. These experiments, 

 Ave are told by him, in the volume for 1775, (p. 520,) 

 were made in November, 1774. In 1778, he printed, 

 it is said, his Memoir on Acids. The date of pre- 

 sentation is given as September, 1778, but the reading- 

 is said to have been 23 November, 1779. In this 

 paper, (p. 536,) he speaks of " the pure air to which 

 Priestley gave the name of dephlogisticated, but which 

 he himself calls oxygen, as being the acidifying prin- 

 ciple." No mention is made of the base of nitrous 

 acid, or of his claim to the discovery of oxygen. In 

 1780, in another paper, he speaks of " vital air, which 

 Priestley improperly called dephlogisticated," (p. 336.) 

 In the volume for 1781 is a paper on Scheele's work; 

 and though Scheele's discovery of oxygen is mentioned, 

 no claim to a partnership is advanced. In the same 

 volume is the admirable paper on the constitution of 

 fixed air, to which he gives the name of carbonic acid, 

 but still no mention of having discovered oxygen. 

 Thus we find that, in at least eight several papers 

 x 



