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< . v . 
II. Objections to the Experiments and Obfervatlons relating to the 
Principle of Acidity , the Compqfition of Water , and Pb!o- 
gifton , confidered ; wVZr farther Experiments and Obfervatlons 
on the fame Subject . By the Rev . Jofeph Prieftley, LL.D. 
F, F ' 
Read November 27, 1788. 
H AVING never failed, when the experiments were con- 
duced with due attention, to procure fome acid when* 
ever I decompofed dephlogifticated and inflammable air in 
clofe veffels, I concluded that an acid was the necefiary refuit 
of the union of thofe two kinds of air, and not water only ; 
which is an hypothefls that has been maintained by Mr. La- 
voisier and others, and which has been made the bafts of 
an inti rely new fyftem of chemiftry, to which a new fyftem of 
terms and characters has been adapted. The faCts that I 
alleged were not difputed ; but to my conclufion it was ob- 
jected, that the acid I procured might come from the phlo- 
gifticated air, which in one of my proceffes could not be 
excluded ; and that it was reafonable to conclude that this 
was the cafe, becaufe Mr. Cavendish had procured the fame 
acid, viz. the nitrous, by decompofing dephlogifticated and 
phlogifticated air with the eleCtric fpark. In other cafes it has 
been faid, that the fixed air I procured came from th z plumbago 
in the iron from which my inflammable air had been extracted. 
With refpeCt to the 'former of thefe objections I would ob- 
ferve, that my procefs is very different from that of Mr. 
Cavendish ; 
