Invention Timeline - Joseph Priestley, English Chemist and Physicist; Discovered that Charcoal is a Conductor of Electricity
b. March 24, 1733 and d. February 6, 1804
English chemist and physicist. He discovered that charcoal is a conductor of electricity. In 1772 he announced a method of impregnating water with fixed air, and the discovery of nitrous gas and its use as a test of the purity and fitness for respiration of gases generally. He employed the burning lens in pneumatic experiments; he discovered the properties of muriatic acid gas, and added much to what was known of the gas generated by putrefactive processes and by animal fermentation; and he determined many facts relative to the diminution and deterioration of air, by the combustion of charcoal and the calcination of emtal. In 1774 he produced oxygen from the oxides of silver and lead; also nitrous, carbonic-oxide, fluoric-acid, muriatic and other gases.
Sylphs! you, retiring to sequster’d bowers,
Where oft your Priestly woos your airy powers,
On noiseless step or quivering pinion glide,
As sits the Sage with Science by his side;
To his charm’d eye in gay undress appear,
Or pour your secrets on his raptured ear.
How nitrous Gas, from iron ingots driven,
Drinks with red lips the purest breath of heaven;
How, while Conferva, from its tender hair,
Gives in bright bubbles empyrean air,
The crystal floods phlogistic ores calcine,
And the pure Ether marries with the Mine.
—Botanic Garden: Dr. Darwin
