14. Mr Fontana entered also very minutely, but with more industry than accuracy or closeness of reasoning, into the chemical novelties which occu pied so much attention throughout Europe in the latter half of the last century. He seems, however, to have had the merit of first applying the discoveries of Priestley respecting the effects of the nitric oxyd to the examination of the qualities of the atmo sphere, by means of the eudiometer, which is the subject of his Descrizione e usi di alcuni stromenti per misurar la salubrita ,deli' aria, 8. Flor. 1774, 4to, 1775, and is further illustrated in his (15.) Re cherches physiques sur la nature de Pair dephlogistique et de Pair nitreux. 8. Par. 1776. He also observed the remarkable property that charcoal possesses, of absorbing several times its bulk of different gases. 16. In the Ricerche ,fisiche sopra Caria fissa, 4. Flor. 1775, he is by no means equally fortunate, having fancied that the acidity of the fixed air is not essential to it, but accidentally derived from the stronger acid employed in expelling it from the earth or alkali. 17. The Philosophical Transactions for 1779, p. 187, contain his Experiments and Obser vations on the Inflammable Air breathedvarious Animals, consisti ng of a repetition of Scheele s attempt to breathe hydrogen gas, which did not always create a sensation of immediate uneasiness, though it was sometimes productive of alarming consequences. 18. In the same volume, p. 432, we find an interesting Account of the Airs extracted from different kinds of Waters, with Thoughts on the Salubrity of the Air at different places, showing that the air afforded by water is very different under different circumstances, but that the quality of the atmosphere itself scarce ly ever exhibits any variations which can be render ed sensible by chemical tests.
19. To the Memoirs of the Italian Society Fon tana contributed several short essays ; the first, en titled Principi generali della solidita e della fluidity dei corgi, Vol. I. p. 89, Verona, 1782 ; containing the prevalent theories of the day respecting the change in the forms of aggregation of the same sub stance, together with experiments on the elasticity of different gases. 20. The second is a collection of definitions, entitled Sopra la luce, la famma, it calore e it flogisto, p. 104, characterizing these sup posed elementary principles according to the ideas of Bergman, Scheele, and others. 21. In a later volume, V. p. 581 (1790), we find a Lettera del Cavaliere F. Fontana al Sign. de Morveau, in which it is conjectured that inflammable air may be a coin. pound of phlogiston and water, and it is observed that the white crusts of flints contain as great a pro portion of pure silica as their internal parts. Our author remarks, however, that his attention had of late been much distracted from chemical pursuits by the attention required for the completion of his col lection of wax models of anatomical subjects, and for the duplicates which he was preparing for the cabinet of Vienna at the request of the emperor.
At a subsequent period, another series of copies of these models was ordered by Bonaparte to be sent to Paris ; but it was there judged inferior to the pre parations already existing in the Ecole de Medecine, which had been made under the direction of Lau monier, and Fontana's collection was sent to the university of Montpellier. He was latterly en gaged for some time in the preparation of a colossal model of a man, built up anatomically of all his com ponent parts, which were accurately represented in wood ; but this elaborate design was never coin. pleted.
22. He was also the author of a few other chemi cal and mineralogical papers of less importance, for instance of an Analyse de in Malachite, Journ. Phys. XI. p. 509; and, 23. A Lettre sur du vitriol de Magnesie trouvi dans des carrieres de gypse, en Pie mow, Journ. Phys. XXXIII. p. 309. 24. His last work is entitled Principes raisonnis de la generation. He was also meditating an essay on the revivification of animals ; but he did not live to complete it. A collection of his works, translated into French by Gibelin, was published at Paris in 1785, entitled Observations Physiques d Chimi'ues.
Fontana bad become acquainted with a great number of contemporary men of science, by having travelled in various parts of' Europe, for the purpose of enriching the cabinet of which he was superin tendent ; the same official situation brought him in_ to contact with all foreigners of distinction who pass. ed through Florence in their travels ; and he seems to have enjoyed a more extensive reputation than many philosophers of deeper research and more ir resistible penetration. He wore the habit of an ec clesiastic, and was not uncommonly called Abb6 ; he was well received in the best societies, though his manners are said to have been sometimes a little at variance with the dress which he adopted. He was treated with great respect by the French gene rals, when they took possession of Tuscany in 1799, and hence he became the object of some suspicion upon the return of the especially with the insurgents of Arezzo, who preceded them, and by whom he was for a short time imprisoned. His last. illness was occasioned by an accidental fall in the street, on the 11th January 1805, and he died the 9th March 1806, at the age of seventy-five. He was buried in the church of the Holy Cross, not far from the tomb of Galileo. His Eloge was pronoun ced by Professor Mangili in the university of Pavia, the 12th November 1812. (CuvlEa, in Biographie Universelle, Vol. XV. 8. Par. 1816.) (o. a.)