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                                  THE

                                HISTORY

                                  OF

                              CHEMISTRY.


                                  BY

                         THOMAS THOMSON, M. D.
                  F.R.S. L. & E.; F.L.S.; F.G.S., &c.

      REGIUS PROFESSOR OF CHEMISTRY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW.


                            IN TWO VOLUMES.

                               VOL. II.

                                LONDON:
                  HENRY COLBURN AND RICHARD BENTLEY,
                        NEW BURLINGTON STREET.

                                 1831.


                  C. WHITING, BEAUFORT HOUSE, STRAND.




                               CONTENTS

                                  OF

                          THE SECOND VOLUME.


  CHAPTER I.                                                     Page

  Of the foundation and progress of scientific chemistry in Great
  Britain                                                           1


  CHAPTER II.

  Of the progress of philosophical chemistry in Sweden             26


  CHAPTER III.

  Progress of scientific chemistry in France                       75


  CHAPTER IV.

  Progress of analytical chemistry                                190


  CHAPTER V.

  Of electro-chemistry                                            251


  CHAPTER VI.

  Of the atomic theory                                            277


  CHAPTER VII.

  Of the present state of chemistry                               309




                         HISTORY OF CHEMISTRY.




CHAPTER I.

OF THE FOUNDATION AND PROGRESS OF SCIENTIFIC CHEMISTRY IN GREAT BRITAIN.


While Mr. Cavendish was extending the bounds of pneumatic chemistry,
with the caution and precision of a Newton, Dr. Priestley, who had
entered on the same career, was proceeding with a degree of rapidity
quite unexampled; while from his happy talents and inventive faculties,
he contributed no less essentially to the progress of the science, and
certainly more than any other British chemist to its popularity.

Joseph Priestley was born in 1733, at Fieldhead, about six miles from
Leeds in Yorkshire. His father, Jonas Priestley, was a maker and
dresser of woollen cloth, and his mother, the only child of Joseph
Swift a farmer in the neighbourhood. Dr. Priestley was the eldest
child; and, his mother having children very fast, he was soon committed
to the care of his maternal grandfather. He lost his mother when he
was only six years of age, and was soon after taken home by his father
and sent to school in the neighbourhood. His father being but poor,
and encumbered with a large family, his sister, Mrs. Keighley, a woman
in good circumstances, and without children, relieved him of all care
of his eldest son, by taking him and bringing him up as her own. She
was a dissenter, and her house was the resort of all the dissenting
clergy in the country. Young Joseph was sent to a public school in
the neighbourhood, and, at sixteen, had made considerable progress in
Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. Having shown a passion for books and for
learning at a very early age, his aunt conceived hopes that he would
one day become a dissenting clergyman, which she considered as the
first of all professions; and he entered eagerly into her views: but
his health declining about this period, and something like phthisical
symptoms having come on, he was advised to turn his thoughts to trade,
and to settle as a merchant in Lisbon. This induced him to apply to the
modern languages; and he learned French, Italian, and German, without a
master. Recovering his health, he abandoned his new scheme and resumed
his former plan of becoming a clergyman. In 1752 he was sent to the
academy of Daventry, to study under Dr. Ashworth, the successor of Dr.
Doddridge. He had already made some progress in mechanical philosophy
and metaphysics, and dipped into Chaldee, Syriac, and Arabic. At
Daventry he spent three years, engaged keenly in studies connected with
divinity, and wrote some of his earliest theological tracts. Freedom
of discussion was admitted to its full extent in this academy. The two
masters espoused different sides upon most controversial subjects, and
the scholars were divided into two parties, nearly equally balanced.
The discussions, however, were conducted with perfect good humour
on both sides; and Dr. Priestley, as he tells us himself, usually
supported the heterodox opinion; but he never at any time, as he
assures us, advanced arguments which he did not believe to be good,
or supported an opinion which he did not consider as true. When he
left the academy, he settled at Needham in Suffolk, as an assistant
in a small, obscure dissenting meeting-house, where his income never
exceeded 30_l._ a-year. His hearers fell off, in consequence of their
dislike of his theological opinions; and his income underwent a
corresponding diminution. He attempted a school; but his scheme failed
of success, owing to the bad opinion which his neighbours entertained
of his orthodoxy. His situation would have been desperate, had he not
been occasionally relieved by sums out of charitable funds, procured