On this date, Joseph Priestley began an experiment in which he discovered photosynthesis, although he did not give it that name. He described his experiment in 1772 in a paper entitled “Observations on Different Kinds of Air”:
…I flatter myself that I have accidentally hit upon a method of restoring air which has been injured by the burning of candles, and that I have discovered at least one of the restoratives which nature employs for this purpose. It is vegetation. In what manner this process in nature operates, to produce so remarkable an effect, I do not pretend to have discovered; but a number of facts declare in favour of this hypothesis…
One might have imagined that, since common air is necessary to vegetable, as well as to animal life, both plants and animal had affected it in the same manner, and I own that I had that expectation, when…
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Old School Garden 