In Great Britain the investigation of gaseous bodies, to which the new doctrines were owing, had originated. Dr. Black had begun the inquiry--Mr. Cavendish had prosecuted it with unparalleled accuracy--and Dr. Priestley had made known a great number of new gaseous bodies, which had hitherto escaped the attention of chemists. As the British chemists had contributed more than those of any other nation to the production of the new facts on which Lavoisier's theory was founded, it was natural to expect that they would have embraced that theory more readily than the chemists of any other nation: but the matter of fact was somewhat different. Dr. Black, indeed, with his characteristic candour, speedily embraced the opinions, and even adopted the new nomenclature: but Mr. Cavendish new modelled the phlogistic theory, and published a defence of phlogiston, which it was impossible at that time to refute. The French chemists had the good sense not to attempt to overturn it. Mr. Cavendish after this laid aside the cultivation of chemistry altogether, and never acknowledged himself a convert to the new doctrines. Dr. Priestley continued a zealous advocate for phlogiston till the very last, and published what he called a refutation of the antiphlogistic theory about the beginning of the present century: but Dr. Priestley, notwithstanding his merit as a discoverer and a man of genius, was never, strictly speaking, entitled to the name of chemist; as he was never able to make a chemical analysis. In his famous experiments, for example, on the composition of water, he was obliged to procure the assistance of Mr. Keir to determine the nature of the blue-coloured liquid which he had obtained, and which Mr. Keir showed to be nitrate of copper. Besides, Dr. Priestley, though perfectly honest and candid, was so hasty in his decisions, and so apt to form his opinions without duly considering the subject, that his chemical theories are almost all erroneous and sometimes quite absurd.