: f' 15% ; ‘a | a spies Bad 
XIV. Remarks ob Mr. Cavendith’s Experiments on Aire In @ 
Letter from Richard Kirwan, By. F R.S. to Sir Jofoph 
| Banks, Bart. P. RLS. 
Read Feb. 5, 17845 
STR, 
AVING liftened with much attention, and derived 
much ufeful information from the very curious experi- 
ments of Mr. CavENpIsH, read at our laft meeting, it is with 
peculiar regret I feel myfelf withheld from yielding an intire 
affent to all he has advanced in his very ingenious paper; and 
it is with ftill greater that I find myfelf obliged, by reafon of 
the oppofition of fome of his deductions to thofe I had the ho- 
nour to lay before the fociety about two years ago, to expofe 
the reafons of my diffent, through your mediation, before this 
meeting. | 
In the paper already mentioned, read in April, 1782, I at- 
tributed the diminution of refpirable air, obferved in common — 
phlogiftic procefles, to the generation and abforptien of fixed 
air, which is now known to be an acid, and capable of being 
abforbed by feveral fubftances. ‘That fixed air was fome how 
or other produced in phlogiftic procefles, either by /eparation 
or compofition, I took for granted from the numerous experi- 
ments of Dr. PriestLey ; and among thefe I feleéted, as leaft 
liable to objection, the Calcination of Metals, the decompofi- 
,) : tion 
