Discovery of simple gases in common air

Another exceptional scientist during the phlogistic era was Henry Cavendish (1731-1810), who (i) recognized and named equivalents (1766-1788), (ii) investigated the properties of fixed air (CO2) and inflammable air (H2), which he erroneously identified with phlogiston, (iii) determined the (nearly constant) 

Partington, A Short History of Chemistry, 3rd ed., pp. 90 93, Dover Publications, New York 

Carl Wilhelm Scheele (1742-1786) was another phenomenal chemist of the phlogistic era. He was actually the first discoverer of oxygen (1772-1774), on which he first published in 1777. He made other important discoveries including (i) chlorine and manganese, (ii) silicon fluoride and hydrofluoric acid from fluorspar, (iii) phosphorus from bone ash, phosphoric acid from the action of nitric acid on phosphorus, (iv) arsenic acid, molybydic acid, tungstic acid, arsenic 

Priestley, Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air, (3 vols.) London (1774 liny, J. Priestley, Experiments and Observations Relating to Various Branches of Natural Philo Sophy (3 Vols., Vol. I London, Vols. II III Birmingham) (1779 1786) [Also cited in J.R. Partington, A Short Elistory of Chemistry, 3rd ed., pp. 110 121, Dover Publications, New York (1989)]. 

Antoine Laurent Lavoisier (1743-1794) (see Fig. 3.32) is universally acknowledged as the founder of modern chemistry. Although he discovered no new substances, devised no really novel apparatuses, and worked out no improved 

---