The Gases of the Atmosphere: The History of Their Discovery

A historical narrative traces the evolving understanding of atmospheric air through experiments, observations, and theoretical debates. It reviews early inquiries into combustion and respiration, the identification of fixed air and dephlogisticated air, and the experimental determination of water's composition, following the work of successive investigators. The account explains the experimental reasoning and methods that transformed speculative ideas into chemical knowledge, culminates with the isolation and study of a newly recognized atmospheric gas, and assesses its properties and status among the known elements.