early in the same year keir completed his translation of macquer's "dictionnaire de chymie", with additions and notes, published at london in two quarto volumes. in 1777 he issued a "treatise on the different kinds of elastic fluids or gases" (new edition, 1779). keir had become friends with matthew boulton, and in the autumn of 1768 he first met james watt at boulton's house.