Abstract

In 1768 H. B. de Saussure studied chemistry with Baumé in Paris, and subsequently, using precise quantitative methods, he analysed minerals collected during his alpine journeys. He began to use the blowpipe in 1784, and later adapted it so that with a microscope and micrometer he could examine the effects of high temperatures on minute specimens of minerals. Analyses of air carried out with a portable eudiometer convinced him that air from alpine valleys contained more oxygen, and was therefore healthier, than air from either mountain tops or plains. In 1788 he accepted the antiphlogistic theory after reading the annotated French translation of Kirwan's Essay on Phlogiston; he announced his conversion in a letter to the translator, Madame Lavoisier, whose reply is discussed and published here for the first time