It has been sopped by one of Mr Caventlith's biographers, that if Mr Kirwan, instead of had as d.his.chemicai opinions, " lu weal never have been obliged to yield to his Frencheategonise, and the antiphlogistic theory would have gained weed." But is thissepposition there seems to be a little of ;lathe* preji4ice. igr caaentlieb by no means dissented from the whole of the antis phlogistic theory : and in, thia paper, he has (Locoed Lavoisier and Scheele in terms of approbation, ss having suggested the op siea, " that dephlogiaticiihul and pidegisticated are quite distinct totbatatiattil and not differieg only in. their degree of phlogiatienr *ion, and that Pernnaea air je n whom, of the. two.; Heafterwards eientione several inemoira of Lanoisier in which phlogiston is entirely discarded a oa4 says that " not only the foregoingenperiment4 tso wet other phenomena of nature, seem explicable., well, or nearly in well,- upon this, as upon the commonly believed principle of phlogiston;" and.alier atittlemit alight ertlkieeturei objective, derived from the cal constitution of yegetahleer he Maceerit te observe, that " LI/wieder eadeaveurti rove. that dephlogisticated air is the acidifying principle*" this is no more than frying, that wad% lose sInAr acidity by unit* to phloguttony.which, with .tegard to the nittotei, vitriolic, phosphoric, end geode& Wide, iP eetteialy true; and. probably with moll to the acid of sugar; " but as to the marine acid,, arid of tartar, it does not appear that they are capa ble of login their acidity by any union with Ohl giston i" and the acids of Sugar tied tiettor Wine even lea acid by a further depidagiancatmo. It is obviooe that di* argot** atoonialltetd7 to an ex ceptiong and not to a total dethiel LORI truth Of the theory : M. Curio, hoe evee erierted that the antiphiOitirtiC theory derived lin first Wig* frosts one groat discovery .pf Mr Cavendieli, t,ltat of the nature of hydrogen mks, and owed its. Gam Otte . establishment to an .that tiF the erotepe *Woe of water bet it would beow* tit fifely to Laveisier the merit of considerable origin/ow is his doctrines respectieg the coolhinetioite ef: oak gen ' and however he may have been portly eetici pated by Boob. and IVInyuw it want.Cernunil from him .tbat the modem Puglia]; chemists innoo4tet, derived the troe knowledge of the eonatittitiee the atmosphere, which they did not admit without some hesitation, but which they did ultimately adniit, when they found the evidence irSeeistible, Ora the other bared, it has been imificieutlor ea lisped, singe Mr Cavendish's death, by the enlightened reseerches ef the meat original of nth chemists, that Levoisier had carried his generalization too far ; and it mutat steer be remeethered, t9 the honour of Dar Omen! dish, and to the enedit Of this conntalya, than we not all been seduced, by the dazzling gip- of universal laws, to admit facts as demonstrated, Which were only made plausible by a alight and imperfect analogy.
11. Answer to Mr Kirwan's Remarks upon the Ex periments on Air. Phil. Trans. 1784. P. 170. Mr relying on the results of some inaccurate ex periments, bad objected to those conclusions, which form the principal basis of the antiphlogistic theory. Mr Cavendish repeated such of these experiments as seemed to be the most ambiguous, and repelled the objections : showing, in particular, that when fixed air was derived from the combustion of iron, it was only to be referred to the plumbago, shown by Bergmann to exist in it, which was well known to be capable, in common with other carbonaceous sub stances, ofaffording fixed air.
12. Experiments on Air. Phil. Trans. 1785. P. 372. The discovery of the composition of the ni tric acid is here further established; and it is shown that the whole, or very nearly the whole of the irre spirable part of the atmosphere is convertible-into this acid, when mixed with oxygen,"and' subjected to the operation of the electric spark : the fixed. air,
sometimes obtained during the process, being wholly dependent on the presence of some organic sub stances.
13. An account of Experiments made by Mr John Macnab, at Henley House, Hudson's Bay, -relating to Freezing Mixtures. Phil. Trans. 1786. P. 241. From these experiments Mr Cavendish infers the existence of two distinct scies of congelation in mixed liquids, which he calls' the Aqueous and SO rituous Con: elations, and of several alternations of easy end cult congelation when the strength is varied, both in the case of the mineral acids and of spirit of wine. The greatest degree of cold ob tained was -78°. 14. An account of Experiments made by Mr John Macnab, at Albany Fbrt, Hudson's Bay. Phil. Trans. 1788. P. 166. The points of easy congela tion are still further investigated, and illustrated by comparisoh with Mr Keir's experiments on the sul furic acid. It was found that the nitric acid was only liable to the aqueous congelation, unless it was strong enough to dissolve ith of its weight of mar ble ; and that it had a point of easy congelation, when it was capable of dissolving -6, the frozen part exhibiting, in other cases, a tendency to ap proach' to this standard. Mr Keir had found that sulfuric acid, of the specific gravity 1.78, froze at 46° ; and that it had another maximum when it was very highly concentrated.
15. On the. Conversion of a Mixture of Dephlogis iicated and Phlogisticated Air into Nitrous Acid, by the Electric Shock. Phil. Trans. 1788. P. 261. some difficulties having occurred to the Continental 'chemists in the repetition of this experiment, it was exhibited with perfect success, by Mr Gilpin, to a number of witnesses. This was an instance of con descension, which could scarcely have been expect ed from the complete conviction, which the author of the discovery must have felt, of his own accuracy, and of the necessity of the establishment of his dis coverl, when time should have been afforded forits examination.
16. On the Height of the Luminous Arch, which was seen on Feb. 23. 1784. Phil. Trans. 1790. p, 101. Mr Cavendish conjectures that the appear. ance of such arches depends on a diffused light, re. sembling the aurora borealis, spread into a flattened space, contained between two planes neprly vertical, and only visible in the direction of its breadth: so that they are never seen at places far remote from the direction of"the surface ; and hence it is difficult to procure observations sufficiently accurate for de termining their height, upon so short a base : but in the present instance there is reason to believe that the height must have been between 52 and 71 miles.
17. On the Civil Year of the Hindoos, and its Divisions, with an Account of three Almanacs belong. ing to Charles Wilkins, Esq. Phil. P. 888. The subject of this paper is more intricate Than generally interesting ; but it may serve as a ape. cimen of the diligence which the author employed in the investigation of every point more or less immedi. ately connected- with his favourite objects. The month of the Hindoos is lunar in its duration, but solar in its commencement ; and its periods area. tremely complicated, and often different for differ. eat geographical situations : the day is divided and subdivided sexagesimally. The date of the year, in the epoch of the Kalee Yug, expresses the ordinal Dumber of years elapsed, as it is usual with our astronomers to reckon their days : so that the year 100 would be the beginning of the second century, and not the 100th year, or the "end of the first cen tury, as in the European calendar : in the same MAN ner as, in astronomical language, 1817 December 81d. 18h. means six o'nlock-in the morning of the 1st of January 1818.