Friends Bibliophiles goodnight,
Two leading chemists, English and French Lavoisier Priestley, have faced during the chemical revolution of the late eighteenth century. The first discovered oxygen in the air and the second explains her role in respiration and combustion. I devoted a previous post to Lavoisier. I now present three works of Priestley.
Joseph Priestley (1733-1804), English theologian, became pastor Leeds, Yorkshire in 1767. Here he began his research on gases. In 1772 he was elected to the Academy of Sciences and published his observations on various species of air. It isolates a large number of gases, including ammonia, nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide and carbon monoxide. It was in 1774 that Priestley made its main finding, that of oxygen. He gets this gas by decomposing lime mercury (HgO or oxide) in the sun with a lens. The name he gives to this new gas is air dephlogisticated, name consistent with the theory of phlogiston it supports.
Priestley Lavoisier found that repeats his experiments and concluded: "... I will refer now dephlogisticated air or air highly breathable combination of state and fixity, by the name of acidifying principle, or, if you prefer the same meaning under a Greek word, by the principle of oxygen. "
Priestley was appointed pastor in Birmingham in 1780. In 1782 he published his History of the Corruptions of Christianity. This treaty was burned in 1791 just as his house and property because of his open support of the French Revolution. He emigrated United States in 1794, when Lavoisier was beheaded, and died there in 1804.
Experiments and Observations on different kinds of air.
Paris, Nyon. 1777-1780.
5 volumes in-12, XXXVI, 434, (2) pp, 2 pl. - (4), LXII, 297 pp, 1 pl.
(4), IV, 352, (4) pp, 5 pl. - LII, 404 pp, 1 pl. - (4), 404 pp, 1 pl.
This book originally appeared in London in 1772 in Volume 62 of Philosophical Transactions of The Royal Society . The first French translations of the work of Priestley appeared in the first volume of Observations on the physical, natural history and the arts published in 1773. This French translation is due to Gibelin doctor Jacques (1744-1828). The first volume is here in second edition (EO 1775), the following volumes are first edition.
In this work, Priestley describes the experiments that led to the discovery of oxygen (air dephlogisticated). Found after searches on the physical nature of nitrous air and air dephlogisticated Fontana. Fourcroy gives details of the French edition in Volume III of the Dictionary of Chemistry Methodical Encyclopedia. There is also the first French translations of the work of Priestley in the first volume of Observations on Physics, natural history and the arts published in 1773.
Experiments and observations on different branches of physics, with a continuation of observations on the air.
Paris, Nyon. 1782-1787.
4 volumes in-8, XXIV, 288 pp, 1 pl. - (4), 312 pp. - XXIV, 527 (1) pp, 1 pl. - XIV (2), 479 pp, 1 pl.
Priestley published the first two volumes in March 1779. Le troisième et dernier volume de cet ouvrage ne parurent qu'au mois de mars 1781. La traduction française est due à Jacques Gibelin.
Histoire de l'électricité
Paris, Hérissant. 1771.
3 volumes in-12 ; XLVI, (2), 432 pp. - (4), 531, (1) pp, 1 pl. - (4), 474, (4) pp, 8 pl.
Priestley fut encouragé à publier son Histoire de l'électricité by the scientist and statesman Benjamin Franklin, whom he met in 1766. The original English edition dates from 1767. Benjamin Franklin helped in the proofreading. Priestley discovered among others that charcoal conducts electricity and the electrification of the conductors remains superficial.
This first French translation is due to Noll and Brisson. The many pages of footnotes are Brisson notes that Priestley gives too much emphasis on Anglo-Saxon times by giving them some of the discoveries made by others. Brisson defends especially Noll's ideas challenged or ignored.
There is a lengthy analysis of this work in the first volume of Introduction to comment on the physical, natural history and the arts . Rozier concludes "It would have been desirable that the translator would have put more suavity in his notes. Several terms are not too strong a taste of the reader. It is so easy to catch errors with honesty, we are surprised that this route was not preferred. "
Bernard
