The discovery of oxygen : part 2 / Experiments by Carl Wilhelm Scheele (1777).

  • Scheele, Carl Wilhelm, 1742-1786.
Date:
1901
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The discovery of oxygen : part 2 / Experiments by Carl Wilhelm Scheele (1777). Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    PREFACE. HE portions of Scheele’s “Chemical Treatise on Air and Fire” here reproduced in English are intended to form a companion volume to No. 7 of the Club Reprints, which contains Priestley’s account of his discovery of oxygen. Not only have the claims of Scheele to the independent discovery of this gas never been disputed, but the valuable volume of “ Letters and Memoranda” of Scheele, edited by Nordenskjold, which was published in 1892, places it beyond doubt that Scheele had obtained oxygen by more than one method at least as early as Priestley’s first isolation of the gas, although his printed account of the discovery only appeared about two years after Priestley’s. The evi- dence of this has been found in Scheele’s laboratory notes, which are still preserved in the Royal Academy of Science in Stockholm. In his “ Chemical Treatise ” Scheele endeavours, at considerable length, to prove by experiments his views as to the compound character of heat and of light. These portions of the work have been entirely omitted from what is reproduced here. All the places where omissions have been made are indicated. Every care has been taken in the endeavour to make the translation a faithful reproduction of the meaning of the original, whilst literal accuracy has been aimed at rather than literary elegance. L. D.