LAVOISIER. 237 



on gases and on heat, and contains many ingenious dis- 

 cussions on the processes of calcination and combustion. 

 He had in the course of that year read several Memoirs, 

 on the subject of his own experiments, to the Academy, 

 and had shewn these experiments to several of its 

 members. Nothing, therefore, can be more incontestable 

 than his claim to the important step now made the 

 cause of so many others, that the calcination of metals 

 is their uniting with a gas become fixed and solid in 

 their substance; and a mortal blow was thus given to 

 the theory of Stahl."* 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 examining 

 the air in which he performed the more useful and con- 

 verse experiment. 



It is singular how very near M. Lavoisier came in 

 these inquiries to two discoveries of first-rate importance. 

 He could not have examined with any care the residue 

 of the air in which his calcinations were performed, 

 without discovering the composition of the atmosphere; 

 nor could he have 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 



* 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. 



