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How did Lavoisier classify elements known in his time?
- How did Lavoisier classify elements known in his time? Did Lavoisier include anything in his classification scheme that we would not now consider an element? Was Lavoisier's scheme of classification based in any way on periodicity of the properties of elements?
ozilion
6/26/1999
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Lavoisier defined an element as any substance which could not be decomposed into simpler substances. Several of the elements he lists in his introductory chemistry text are now known to be compounds. Two of his elements (heat and light) are not considered matter at all. Lavoisier anticipated that his list was necessarily limited to an 18th century perspective,
Not that we are entitled to affirm, that these substances we consider as simple may not be
compounded of two, or even of a greater number of principles; but, since these principles cannot be separated, or rather
since we have not hitherto discovered the means of separating them, they act with regard to us as simple substances, and we ought never to suppose them compounded until experiment and observation have proved them to be so." [1]
He classified the known elements into four groups:
- Elastic fluids
- Lavoisier included light, heat, oxygen, nitrogen, and hydrogen in this group.
- Nonmetals
- This group includes "oxidizable and acidifiable nonmetallic elements". Lavoisier lists sulfur, phosphorus, carbon, hydrochloric acid, hydrofluoric acid, and boric acid.
- Metals
- These elements are "metallic, oxidizable, and capable of neutralizing an acid to form a salt." They include antimony and arsenic (which are not considered metals today), silver, bismuth, cobalt, copper, tin, iron, manganese, mercury, molybdenum, nickel, gold, platinum, lead, tungsten, and zinc.
- Earths
- Lavoisier's salt-forming earthy solid "elements" included lime, magnesia (magnesium oxide), baryta (barium oxides), alumina (aluminum oxide), and silica (silicon dioxide).
The list of elements was neither complete enough nor accurate enough to suggest periodic behavior at this point in history.
Here is Lavoisier's original table of elements, adapted from his Traité Élémentaire de Chimie, published in Paris in 1789. Note that the metallic elements should be listed as "salifiable", (salt-forming), not acidifiable.
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Noms nouveaux |
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Noms anciens correspondans |
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Subftances fimples qui appartiennent aux trois règnes & qu'on peut regarde comme les élémens des corps. |
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Lumière |
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Lumière |
Calorique |






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Chaleur Principe de la chaleur. Fluide igné. Feu. Matière du feu & de la chaleur. |
Oxygène |






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Air déphlogiftiqué Air emiréal. Air vital. Bafe de l'air vital. |
Azote |




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Gaz phlogiftiqué Mofète. Bafe de la mofete. |
Hydrogène |




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Gaz inflammable Bafe du gaz inflammable. |
Subftances fimples non métalliques oxidables & acidifiables |
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Soufre |
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Soufre |
Phofphore |
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Phofphore |
Carbone |
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Carbone |
Radical muriatique |
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Inconnu |
Radical fluorique |
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Inconnu |
Radical boracique |
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Inconnu |
Subftances fimples métalliques oxidables & acidifiables |
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Antimoine
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Antimoine
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Argent
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Argent
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Arfenic
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Arfenic
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Bifmuth
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Bifmuth
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Cobolt
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Cobolt
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Cuivre
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Cuivre
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Etain
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Etain
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Fer
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Fer
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Manganèfe
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Manganèfe
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Mercure
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Mercure
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Molybdène
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Molybdène
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Nickel
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Nickel
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Or
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Or
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Platine
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Platine
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Plomb
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Plomb
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Tungftène
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Tungftène
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Zinc
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Zinc
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Subftances fimples falifiables terreufes |
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Chaux
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Terre calcaire, chaux
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Magnéfie
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Magnéfie, bafe du fel d'Epfom
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Baryte
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Barote, terre pefante
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Alumine
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Argile, terre de l'alun, bafe de l'alun
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Silice
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Terre filiceufe, terre vitrifiable
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References
- Table and quote from Antoine Lavoisier's Traité Élémentaire de Chimie, 1789, as quoted in
J. R. Partington's A Short History of Chemistry (Dover, 1989, ISBN 0486659771).
The preface to Lavoisier's text is available in HTML at Carmen
Giunta's Classical Chemistry site.
Giunta has also provided an English translation of Lavoisier's table.
Author: Fred Senese senese@antoinefrostburg.edu |