2 State of Chemical Opinion in Britaia. 
been drynefs and tranquillity. The un- 
natural warmth of January, indeed, pro- 
duced a good deal of windy and ftormy 
weather; but it was almoft confined to 
that month, and to May. ‘The princi- 
pal rain was in the beginning of July, 
and the clofe of September; but through 
the whole year.there were few fucceflive 
days of continued rain. Moift, driz- 
zling, foggy weather was frequent to- 
wards the clofe of the year. The mild- 
ne(s of the fummer heats rendered thun- 
derand lighteninga rare occurrence ;and, 
perhaps, few years have paft more free 
from the awful and terrific phenomena 
of nature. -* 
Fan. 5, 1797. 
EE 
. To the Editor of ibe Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, . 
T HE ftate of chemical opinion in 
Britain, for which your correfpon- 
dent S. T. calls, may ealily be exhi- 
bited. In general, tt may be obferved, 
that meoft of our living authors and 
teachers, from Dr. BLACK downwards, 
have adopted the two great tenets of the 
~Lavoifterian fyftem. They confider, 
1. Water as compounded of oxygen and 
hydiogen; and,2. Metals as fimple bodies, 
fo far as analyfis has yet gone. For al- 
though Mr. CAvENDIsH was the dif- 
coverer of the compofition of water, the 
antiphlogiftic dotirine refts upon that 
propofition ;. accordingly, the laft confi- 
derable attempt to overturn it from its 
foundation, was made by Dr. Prigst- 
LEY, at the fuggeftion of his friend, Mr. 
Kerr; who perceiving that oxygen fo 
generally produced an acid, in uniting 
with an inflammable bafis, concluded 
that the dame thing muft happen when 
oxygen and hydrogen gaffes were ex- 
ploded together. ‘The analogy, how- 
ever, did not hold in this cafe; and the 
unavoidabie prefence of a fmall quantity 
ef azotic gas, fuficiently accounts for 
the. acid diticovered by Dr. PRIESTLEY 
in the liquer depofited atter the experi- 
ment. “1 he precefles carried on upon a 
large {cale in France, together with. the 
oxygen and hydrogen obtainable from 
water by, the electric fhock, which has 
been larely done in a very fatictactory 
manner, feem tod have added ftrength 
to the prevailing conviction on this leads 
img point. Ir does not appear that Dr. 
PRIESTLEY’S €xperiments, lince lils ex- 
4 patriation, have hrought back any de- 
ferter to the old ftandard of phlogiften. 
M. pe Luc has written largely, but to 
wee 
f Jan. 
little purpofe, againft the new theory - 
and nomenclature. His papers (in the 
Fourn. de Phyfique) were fo barren of 
faéts, and fo abundant in words, that 
moft men of fcience in Europe were 
fick of reading before he ceafed to 
write. “Except M. pe Lue, there is 
probably no author now among us, who 
at once conténds for the exiftence of 
phlogifton, and ftrenuoufly denies the 
compofition of water. Some of the lu- 
nar philofophers, as Mr. Warr and 
KEIR, may be fet down as fceptics. - 
M. LAvolIsiER is thought by many 
of our countrymen unfuccefsful in his 
- attempt to engraft Dr. BLACK’s doc- 
trine of latent heat on his antiphlogif- 
tic fyftem. His fuppofition of-a large 
quantity of caloric being condenfed in 
nitre, nitric acid, &c. affords an indica- 
cation, that he did not rightly conceive 
that ingenious do¢trine. Dr. BEDDOES 
(Philot. Tr. ox the fufion of won) and Dr. 
Hutron, have treated the fuppofition 
as altogether unwarrantable. Dr. Hut- 
TON (Phil. Difertations) has accounted 
for the phenomena obferved in explo- 
fions and deflagrations from the folar © 
fubftance, which he imagines to be con- 
denfed in plants. The fuper-addition 
of this hypothefis to the proper tenets of 
M. LavorstER appeats to conftitute 
Dr. Hutron’s chemical creed ; and it 
is probably the only one exifting, appli- - 
cable, with tolerable plaufibility, to the 
whole fm of the phenomena. It near- 
ly, I believe, coincides with thofe of M. 
M. Gren’and RicnTER. As to M. 
GiTTLInG, he has inferred, from very 
inadequate experiments, that azote and 
oxygene gaffes differ only in this, that 
the fame gravitating matter (oxygen) 
is united in the former with. light, and 
in theglatter with caloric. ‘This is, I 
think, the only morfel of theory of 
which he has been the propefer. 
Mrs. FULHAME has endeavoured te 
correct the antiphlogiftic fyftem, by re- - 
ferring to water as the fource of oxygen, 
in all oxydations. | She has not perhaps 
made many converts. But the ingenuity 
of her arguments, and the novelty of 
her jacts, may be triumphantly quoted by 
the advocates of female talents ; nor can 
there exift a dilettante in fcience, fo dead 
to merit, as not to regret, that there the 
res angufia domi thould obftruét the pro- 
fecution of refearches fo curious; //ce 
ihe preface io Mrs. FULHAME’S Effay.) 
Dr: AusTIN made an ingenious ef- 
fort to reduce the number of elementary 
principles, by refolving charcoal (car- 
lanes 
