"Finding air necessary for the of fire, Scheele first turned his attention to its analysis; he found that solution of liver of sulphur, and certain other sulphureous compounds, occasioned a diminution in the bulk of air, to which they were exposed, equal to one part in about five, the flame of hydrogen and that sulphur caused a similar decrease of bulk in air standing over water, and lime-water not being rendered in either case turbid by the residuums, no fixed air was formed. He then obtains empyreal air (oxygen) by the decomposition nitric acid, and other processes; describes the method of transferring, collecting, and examining the gases, and endeavours to prove that heat is a compound of empyreal air and phlogiston; he also shows by direct experiments, that the absorption occasioned in atmospheric air by liver of sulphur, is referrible to the abstraction of its empyreal portion; that it totally absorbs empyreal air, and that, upon adding to the residuary portion of atmospheric air, a quantity of empyreal air, equal to that absorbed by the sulphureous liquor, an air is again compounded, similar in all respects to that of the atmosphere. The identity of these investigations with those of Priestley will not fail of being observed, but... although Priestley was in the field a little before him, Scheele was unacquainted with his proceedings."