Note 39 — Chapter VI · LIFE OF DAVY. 1778 to 1829.
Reading edition
The discovery of the simplicity of chlorine was claimed by the French chemists; Davy afterwards said of Gay-Lussac’s paper in the Annales de Chimie for July 1814, ‘The historical notes attached to it are of a nature not to be passed over without animadversion. M. Gay-Lussac states that he and M. Thénard were the first to advance the hypothesis that chlorine was a simple body, and he quotes M. Ampère as having entertained that opinion before me. On the subject of the originality of the idea of chlorine being a simple body I have always vindicated the claims of Scheele, but I must assume for myself the labour of having demonstrated its properties and combinations and of having explained the chemical phenomena it produces, and I am in possession of a letter from M. Ampère that shows he has no claims of this kind to make.’