sons having come to America, so in the end, deeply concerned for his
life-companion's comfort, the decision to emigrate was reached, and
their faces were turned to the West.

In reviewing the history of chemistry the remark is frequently heard
that one blotch on the fair escutcheon of French science was placed
there when the remorseless guillotine ushered Lavoisier into eternity.
Was not the British escutcheon of science dimmed when Priestley passed
into exile? Priestley--who had wrought so splendidly! And yet we should
not be too severe, for an illustrious name--Count Rumford--which should
have been ours--was lost to us by influences not wholly unlike those
which gained us Priestley. Benjamin Thompson, early in life abandoned a
home and a country which his fellow citizens had made intolerable.

Read Priestley's volumes on Air and on Natural Philosophy. They are
classics. All conversant with their contents agree that the experimental
work was marvelous. Priestley's discovery of oxygen was epoch-making,
but does not represent all that he did. Twice he just escaped the
discovery of nitrogen. One wonders how this occurred. He had it in hand.
The other numerous observations made by him antedate his American life
and need not be mentioned here. They alone would have given him a
permanent and honorable rank in the history of chemistry. Students of
the science should reserve judgment of Priestley until they have
familiarized themselves with all his contributions, still accessible in
early periodicals. When that has been done, the loss to English science,
by Priestley's departure to another clime will be apparent.

His dearest friends would have held him with them. Not every man's hand
was against him--on the contrary, numerous were those, even among the
opponents of his political and theological utterances, who hoped that he
would not desert them. They regretted that he had--

turned his attention too much from the luminous field of
philosophic disquisition to the sterile regions of polemic
divinity, and the still more thorny paths of polemic politics....

from which the hope was cherished that he would recede and devote all
his might to philosophical pursuits.

A very considerable number ... of enlightened inhabitants,
convinced of his integrity as a man, sincerity as a preacher, and
superlative merit as a philosopher, were his strenuous advocates
and admirers.

But the die had be