COLLECTION OF MEMOIRS, 84h 



difengagement of air in confiderable quantity, and that this 

 air formed a volume at lealt lOOvO timis greater than that of 

 the litharge employed. As this difcovery appears to me one 

 of the moft Interefting which has been made fince Slaahl, I 

 thought it expedient to fecure to myfelf the property, by de- 

 poliling llie prefent note in the bands of the fecr.etary of ihe 

 academy, to remain fecret till the period when I iliall publifti 

 n)y experiments." 



(Signed) LAVOISIER. 

 Parif, ]fi November, 1772. 



Comparing this firit note with that which I had depofited whence he vln- 



at Ihe academy the 20th of Oaober preceding on the com-<^'"^" ^'= "s^^' 



■ r r • 1 T J 1 ^'-^ ^^^ modern 



budicn of phofphorus, with the paper which I read at the theory of com- 



acaUumy of the public meeting of Eafler, 1773, and Jaftly tuftign inijjz. 

 Wiiij thofe that I have publidied fucceflively, it is eafy to 

 perceive that I had conceived fo early as the year 1772 the 

 general idea of the theory of combuftion which I have fince 

 publilhed. 



This theory which I have confiderably developed in 1777,— which was 

 and which almoft at that period I brought to the degree of ^JJ^'^'^^P^^.Jj 

 perfedion in which it is at prefent, was not begun to be till many years 

 taught by Fourcroy till the winter 1786-1787 ; it was not**^^'^^^^''"^*- 

 adopted by Giiyton Morveau till a later period i and Ber- 

 thollet wrote flili in the language of the phlogiftic dodrine in 

 1785. This theory then is not, as I hear it called, the theory 

 of the French chemifts ; it is mine, and it is a property which 

 I reclaim before the tribunal of my cotemporapes and of pof- 

 terity. Others undoubtedly have contributed to its perfection, 

 but I hope that no one will difpute with me, all the theory of The claim fpe- 

 oxidation and combutiion; the analyfis and decompofition ''^"''X ^*^^*** 

 of air by metals and inflammable bodies ; the theory of aci- 

 dification ; more accurate knowledge on the nature of a great 

 roany acids, and particularly the vegetable acids ; the firft 

 notions on the compolilion of vegetable and animal fub- 

 flances ; the theory of refpiration, in which Seguin co-ope- 

 rated with me ; the prefent collection will prefent all the 

 papers on which I found my claims ; the reader will judge. 



ANNOTATION.— W. N. 



It wai my intention to have pointed out how far the earlier Notice of the 

 tiiemifts, as well as fome of the contemporaries of this defer v- early invcnc«*s 



edl/ 



