62 
FIRST REPORT- 1831 . 
perfectly prepared to yield the rich harvest, which he after¬ 
wards gathered from it. The very implements, with which he 
was to work, were for the most part to be invented ; and of the 
merits of those, which he did invent, it is a sufficient proof that 
they continue in use to this day, with no very important modi¬ 
fications. All his contrivances for collecting, transferring, and 
preserving different kinds of air, and for submitting those airs 
to the action of solid and liquid substances, were exceedingly 
simple, beautiful, and effectual. They were chiefly, too, the 
work of his own hands, or were constructed under his direc¬ 
tions by unskilled persons ; for the class of ingenious artists, 
from whom the chemical philosopher now derives such valuable 
aid, had not then been called into existence by the demands of 
the science. With a very limited knowledge of the general 
principles of chemistry, and almost without practice in its most 
common manipulations ;—restricted by a narrow income, and at 
first with little pecuniary assistance from others ;—compelled, 
too, to devote a large portion of his time to other pressing oc¬ 
cupations, he nevertheless surmounted all obstacles ; and in the 
career of discovery, outstripped many, who had long been ex¬ 
clusively devoted to science, and were richly provided with all 
appliances and means for its advancement. 
It is well known that the accident of living near a public 
brewery at Leeds, first directed the attention of Dr. Priestley 
to pneumatic chemistry, by casually presenting to his observa¬ 
tion the appearances attending the extinction of lighted chips 
of wood, in the gas which floats over fermenting liquors. He 
remarked, that the smoke formed distinct clouds floating on the 
surface of the atmosphere of the vessel, and that this mixture of 
air and smoke, when thrown over the sides of the vat, fell to the 
ground; from whence he deduced the greater weight of this 
sort of air than of atmospheric air. He next found that water 
imbibes the new air, and again abandons it when boiled or 
frozen. These more obvious properties of fixed air having been 
ascertained, he extended his inquiries to its other qualities and 
relations ; and was afterwards led by analogy to the discovery 
of various other gases, and to the investigation of their charac¬ 
teristic properties. 
It would be inconsistent with the scope of this Essay to give 
a full catalogue of Dr. Priestley’s discoveries, or to enumerate 
more of them, than are necessary to a just estimate of his phi¬ 
losophical habits and character. He was the unquestionable 
author of our first knowledge of oxygen gas, of nitrous oxide, 
of muriatic, sulphurous, and fluor acid gases, of ammoniacal 
gas, and of its condensation into a solid form by the acid gases. 
