---
title: "Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air"
chunk: 2/2
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experiments_and_Observations_on_Different_Kinds_of_Air"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:32:09.817781+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

Priestley assembled his oxygen paper and several others into a second volume of Experiments and Observations on Air and published it in 1776. He does not emphasise his discovery of "dephlogisticated air" (leaving it to Part III of the volume) but instead argues in the preface how important such discoveries are to rational religion. His paper narrates the discovery chronologically, relating the long delays between experiments and his initial puzzlements. Thus, it is difficult to determine when exactly Priestley "discovered" oxygen. Such dating is significant as Lavoisier and Swedish pharmacist Carl Wilhelm Scheele both have strong claims to the discovery of oxygen as well, Scheele having been first to isolate the gas (although he published after Priestley) and Lavoisier having been first to describe it as purified "air itself entire without alteration" (not "dephlogisticated air").

== Scientific work on Airs ==
In this section, a list of all Priestley's scientific books on Airs has been compiled. The list doesn't include any of the several scientific papers, that he also wrote to various journals on the subject (see: List of works by Joseph Priestley).
Books from 1772 to 1790:

Directions for Impregnating Water with Fixed Air. London, 1772.
Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air, Vol.1. London, 1774.
Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air, Vol.2. London, 1775.
Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air, Vol.3. London, 1777.
Experiments and Observations relating to various Branches of Natural Philosophy, Vol.1. [Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air, Vol.4]. London, 1779.
Experiments and Observations relating to various Branches of Natural Philosophy, Vol.2. [Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air, Vol.5]. Birmingham, 1781.
Experiments Relating to Phlogiston. London, 1784.
Experiments and Observations relating to various Branches of Natural Philosophy, Vol.3. [Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air, Vol.6]. Birmingham, 1786.
Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air, Vol.1–6. In 3 volumes, being the former 6 abridged and methodised, with many additions. Birmingham, 1790.
Books from 1791 to 1803:

Experiments on the Generation of Air from Water; to which are prefixed, Experiments relating to the Decomposition of Dephlogisticated and Inflammable Air. London, 1793.
Heads of Lectures on a Course of Experimental Philosophy; delivered at the New College in Hackney. [First 10 of 36 lectures are about Airs]. London, 1794.
Considerations on the Doctrine of Phlogiston and the Decomposition of Water. Philadelphia, 1796.
Experiments and Observations relating to the Analysis of Atmospherical Air; also farther Experiments relating to the Generation of Air from Water. [Red before the American Philosophical Society, Feb.5th and 19th in 1796, and printed in their Transactions. To which are added, Considerations on the Doctrine of Phlogiston, and the Decomposition of Water, addressed to Messrs. Berthollet &c]. London, 1796.
Considerations on the Doctrine of Phlogiston and the Decomposition of Water, Part II. Philadelphia, 1797.
Doctrine of Phlogiston established and that of the Composition of Water refuted. Northumberland, 1800.
Doctrine of Phlogiston established, with Observations on the Conversion of Iron into Steel, in a Letter to Mr. Nicholson. Printed in 1803.

== Notes ==

== Bibliography ==
Fruton, Joseph S.  Methods and Styles in the Development of Chemistry. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 2002. ISBN 0-87169-245-7
Gibbs, F. W. Joseph Priestley: Adventurer in Science and Champion of Truth. London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1965.
Jackson, Joe, A World on Fire: A Heretic, An Aristocrat and the Race to Discover Oxygen. New York: Viking, 2005. ISBN 0-670-03434-7.
Kramnick, Isaac. "Eighteenth-Century Science and Radical Social Theory: The Case of Joseph Priestley's Scientific Liberalism." Journal of British Studies 25 (1986): 1–30.
Kuhn, Thomas.  The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, third edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996. ISBN 0-226-45808-3.
Schaffer, Simon. "Priestley Questions: An Historiographic Survey." History of Science 22.2 (1984): 151–83.
Schofield, Robert E. The Enlightenment of Joseph Priestley: A Study of his Life and Work from 1733 to 1773. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997. ISBN 0-271-01662-0.
Schofield, Robert E. The Enlightened Joseph Priestley: A Study of His Life and Work from 1773 to 1804. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004. ISBN 0-271-02459-3.
Thorpe, T.E. Joseph Priestley. London: J. M. Dent, 1906.
Uglow, Jenny. The Lunar Men: Five Friends Whose Curiosity Changed the World. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002. ISBN 0-374-19440-8.

== External links ==

archive.org:
full text (1772)
full text (2nd edition, 1774)
 Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air public domain audiobook at LibriVox