time he found his master had expired.[3]


JOSEPH PRIESTLEY

While the opulent but diffident Cavendish was making his
important discoveries, another Englishman, a poor country
preacher named Joseph Priestley (1733-1804) was not only
rivalling him, but, if anything, outstripping him in the pursuit
of chemical discoveries. In 1761 this young minister was given a
position as tutor in a nonconformist academy at Warrington, and
here, for six years, he was able to pursue his studies in
chemistry and electricity. In 1766, while on a visit to London,
he met Benjamin Franklin, at whose suggestion he published his
History of Electricity. From this time on he made steady
progress in scientific investigations, keeping up his
ecclesiastical duties at the same time. In 1780 he removed to
Birmingham, having there for associates such scientists as James
Watt, Boulton, and Erasmus Darwin.

Eleven years later, on the anniversary of the fall of the Bastile
in Paris, a fanatical mob, knowing Priestley's sympathies with
the French revolutionists, attacked his house and chapel, burning
both and destroying a great number of valuable papers and
scientific instruments. Priestley and his family escaped violence
by flight, but his most cherished possessions were destroyed; and
three years later he quitted England forever, removing to the
United States, whose struggle for liberty he had championed. The
last ten years of his life were spent at Northumberland,
Pennsylvania, where he continued his scientific researches.