Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
the global geological community, but not without a fight from the
Neptunists.
Richard Kirwan was born on 1 August 1733 in Galway, Ireland,
into a prominent Catholic land-owning family, and went on to
become a noted chemist and geologist. He served as President of the
Academy from 1799 until 1812. His topic Elements of Mineralogy,
published in 1784 (a second edition appeared in 1794), was the first
English-language text on the subject, and elevated him to the ranks of
the most influential mineralogists of his day.
He showed a remarkable talent for learning from an early age,
and studied in Poitiers in France where he began to purchase topics on
chemistry, much to the consternation of his mother. He later moved
to St Omer in order to study for the priesthood. There he excelled at
classics and was appointed Professor of Humanities. In 1755, when
he was twenty-two years old, his elder brother was killed in a duel,
apparently with a porter of the House of Commons, and he succeeded
to the family estates and an income of £4,000 a year. In 1761 he moved
to London where he was called to the Bar, but he abandoned law in
1868 in preference for a life engaged in scientific study and endeavour.
He returned to Galway in 1772 and spent the next nine years learning
Greek and other European languages, and assembling a fine library. In
1777 he returned to London where he soon became involved in several
societies, such as the Royal Society of which he became a Fellow
in 1780, and the less influential group, the Chapter Coffee House
Society. He was unfortunate in that his library was stolen by priva-
teers while it was in transit on the high seas. Eventually the library
made its way to the Salem Athenaeum in Salem, Massachusetts,
where it can still be consulted. In London Kirwan carried out much
of his work on chemistry, and for it he was awarded the Copley medal
of the Royal Society. In 1787 his most important work in chemistry,
An Essay on Phlogiston and the Constitution of Acids, was published.
In this work he advanced the theory that phlogiston was a constituent
of all combustible substances which, when burnt, lost phlogiston,
broadly equivalent to a loss of oxygen. This theory was later
