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Henry Cavendish: The Discovery of Hydrogen First printing 1766 |
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"In 1766 Cavendish published his first paper, for which he received the Royal Society's Copley Medal. It was on `factitious' airs, that is, airs that are contained inelastically in other bodies but are capable of being freed and made elastic. Cavendish's careful gravimetric discrimination of several factitious airs, together with the work of Black on fixed air, put forward strong evidence against the notion of a single, universal air" (DSB). |
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"Cavendish showed that hydrogen, which was then called `inflammable air' or `phlogiston,' was distinct from other combustible gases by measuring its density and the amount of gas evolved from a given amount of acid and metal... Early experimenters, had obtained the gas, but Cavendish was the first to study it carefully and report on its properties, so he is usually given the credit for having discovered it" (Britannica, Asimov).
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CAVENDISH, Henry. "Three Papers, containing Experiments on factitious Air," pp. 141-184 in Philosophical Transactions, Volume LVI for the year 1766 (the complete volume). London: L. Davis and C. Reymers, printers to the Royal Society, 1767. Small quarto, 20th-century leather library binding with embossed stamp of Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research on general title-page, two bookplates, and library pocket on rear pastedown. $1200 First printing. Light dampstaining, mostly marginal. Illustrated with numerous folding copper-engraved plates including large folding plate of Cavendish's experiments.
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