96 Chemical Philosophy, 



since which time its qualities have been more fully 

 developed by Scheele, Lavoisier, Goettling; 

 Cavendish, Hildebrandt, Lampadius, and se- 

 veral other distinguished cherhists/ In 1769 Mr. 

 Gahn, of Sweden, discovered that phosphorus was 

 contained in bones, and his countryman Scheele, 

 very soon afterwards invented a method of ob- 

 taining this substance from thern. The properties 

 o^ phosphorus have been also more successfully in- 

 vestigated, during this period, than ever before, by 

 Margraaf, Morveau, LavoisieRj and Pei^e- 

 tier. The properties and combinations of carhoii 

 have been very ably examined, within a few years 

 past, by many eminent philosophers. The power 

 of this substance to correct impurities, and to re- 

 move disagreeable odours, has been shown by the 

 experiments of Mr. Lowitz, of Petersburgh, and 

 several others. The discovery by Mr. Tennant, 

 that the diamond is pure carbon in a state of crys- 

 tallization,^ is by no means a small or uninteresting^ 

 step in the progress of chemical science. Dr. 

 Black first gave the denomination of.^xefl? air to a 

 compound of carbon and oxygen, in a gaseous 

 state, but without understanding its component 

 'materials. Mr. Keir first concluded that this 

 species of air was an acid, which opinion was 

 soon afterwards confirmed by the experiments of 

 Bergman, Fontana, and others. Further inqui- 

 ries into its nature were instituted with consider- 

 able success, by Dr. Priestley and Mr. Bewly, 

 and by Messrs. De Morveau, Proust, and La- 

 voisier. And, finally, the composition of this gas 



y The late ingenious Dr. Girtanner supposed that his experiments 

 proved azvte to be not a simple substance, as the French academicians hejd 

 it, but a compound, formed of the same materials with water, in different 

 proportions, and differently modified. If this be the case, the fact will go 

 far toward unsettling an important doctrine of the French system. Ses 

 Medical Repository, vol. iv. p. I92. 



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