WOULFE Peter Experiments made in Order to ascertain the Nature of some Mineral Substances; and, in particular, so see how far the acids of sea-salt and a vitriol contribute to mineralize metallic and other substances.

Poggendorff, II, 1368-1369 ; not in Neville.

First edition of the text read at the Royal Society on 20 June 1776.

Author of several treatises on the properties of chemical substances, the Irish mineralogist and chemist Peter Woulfe (1727-1803) is best known for having lent his name to the Woulfe bottle – a bottle with spouted holes, allowing a gas to circulate in a liquid. He is also credited with the discovery of the first synthetic dye, picric acid, which he described in 1771. Finally, he was the first to suspect the existence of tungsten, a chemical element that was unknown at the time. Admitted to the Royal Society in December 1775, the Experiments… represent his inaugural lecture, given in honor to the grant received after the death of the British naturalist Henry Baker (1698-1774).

“In this offprint from Philos. Trans. Woulfe describes the 25 experiments he made to determine the extent of mineralization by acid of salt (hydrochloric) and acid of vitriol (sulphuric). The conclusion reached was that silver and mercury are the only metals mineralized by acid of salt and that the mineral formed also contain acid of vitriol… Woulfe presented this paper as the first of the Bakerian Lectures. Henry Baker (1698-1774) left funds in his will to the Royal Societey to endow a lecture series” (Cole).

A good copy at full margins with a few corrections.