Bicentenary of james keir, f. R. S.

ABSTRACT ON September 29 occurs the bicentenary of the birth of James Keir, an able chemist and the friend of Erasmus Darwin, Boulton, Watt, Priestley and Davy. The youngest of a family of

eighteen and born in Stirlingshire, after attending the High School and University of Edinburgh he entered the Army and afterwards served for several years in the West Indies. Resigning his

commission in 1768, he settled in the Midlands, became connected with various industrial enterprises and devoted himself to chemistry and geology. He was in turn a glass manufacturer at

Stourbridge, an assistant to Boulton and Watt at Soho and the founder, with Alexander Blair, of a soap and alkali works. With Blair, too, in 1794 he opened the Tividale Colliery. In 1776 he

translated Macquer's “Dictionary of Chemistry” and in 1777 published a treatise on elastic fluids or gases. He also contributed chemical papers to the Royal Society, and in 1785 was

elected a fellow. A chemical dictionary of his own, of which he published the first part in 1789, he discontinued on his becoming convinced of the weakness of the phlogiston theory. For many

years he lived at West Bromwich, where he died October 11, 1820, at the age of eighty-five years. Access through your institution Buy or subscribe This is a preview of subscription content,

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Bicentenary of James Keir, F.R.S.. _Nature_ 136, 506–507 (1935). https://doi.org/10.1038/136506e0 Download citation * Issue Date: 28 September 1935 * DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/136506e0

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