In his _Statical Essays_ Hales makes mention of an experiment in which common air and air generated from pyrites by spirit of nitre made a turbid red mixture, and in which part of the common air was absorbed. This phenomenon “particularly struck” Priestley, who, acting upon Cavendish’s hint that the red appearance was probably dependent “upon the spirit of nitre only” and that the metals might answer as well as pyrites, proceeded to investigate the action of nitric acid upon a number of the metals, and as the result of his inquiries he succeeded in isolating the gas we now know as _nitric oxide_, but which he termed _nitrous air_. “Though,” he says, “I cannot say that I altogether like the term, neither myself nor any of my friends, to whom I have applied for the purpose, have been able to hit upon a better.” This paper exhibits Priestley at his best. In it he describes all the main properties of nitric oxide. “One of the most conspicuous properties of this kind of air,” he says, “is the great diminution of any quantity of common air with which it is mixed, attended with a turbid red, or deep orange colour, and a considerable heat.... The diminution of a mixture of this and common air is not an equal diminution of both the kinds, which is all that Dr Hales could observe, but of about one fifth of the common air, and as much of the nitrous air as is necessary to produce that effect; which, as I have found by many trials, is about one half as much as the original quantity of common air. “I hardly know any experiment that is more adapted to amaze and surprise than this is, which exhibits a quantity of air which, as it were, devours a quantity of another kind of air half as large as itself, and yet is so far from gaining any addition to its bulk that it is considerably diminished by it.... “It is exceedingly remarkable that this effervescence and diminution, occasioned by the mixture of nitrous air, is peculiar to common air, or _air fit for respiration_, and, as far as I can judge from a great number of observations, is at least very nearly, if not exactly, in proportion to its fitness for this purpose; so that by this means the goodness of air may be distinguished much more accurately than it can be done by putting mice or any other animals to breathe in it. “This was a most agreeable discovery to me, as I hope it may be a useful one to the public; especially as from this time I had no occasion for so large a stock of mice as I had been used to keep for the purpose of these experiments.” Priestley here suggests the basis of a method of _Eudiometry_, or method of measuring the goodness of air, which in his hands, but more especially in those of Cavendish, led to most important results. The quantitative analysis of the air may be said to have taken its rise from the publication of Priestley’s paper.