Now and then he mentions a considerable degree of deafness, and sent to Philadelphia for a speaking trumpet, but cheerily adds,
I am, however, thankful that my eyes do not fail me.
Here and there occur plaints like these:
Though my philosophical labours are nearly over, I am glad to hear what is passing in that region in which I once moved, though what I then did seems for the present to be overlooked and forgotten. I am confident, however, as much as I can be of anything, that notwithstanding the almost universal reception of the new theory, which is the cause of it, it is purely chimerical, and cannot keep its ground after a sufficient scrutiny, which may be deferred, but which must take place in time. I am glad to find that Mr. Cruikshank in England, as well as chemists in France, begin to attend to my objections, though the principal of them have been published many years; but, as you say, many will not read, and therefore they cannot know anything that makes against the opinions they have once adopted. Bigotry is not confined to theology.
The experimental work for the year was not very great. Probably this was the result of his general physical weakness and in part it was due to his preoccupation with literary labours. How
ever, he did write out his results, obtained on heating "finery cinders and charcoal" and thus emphasized the gaseous product of which he observes—
It cannot be denied, however, that this gaseous oxyd of carbon (CO) is inflammable ... and is essentially different from all other oxyds, none of which are combustible.
Along in the month of November he wrote a vigorous protest against Cruikshank's explanation of the mode of formation of carbon monoxide. In this polemic he of course threw into prominence his precious phlogiston, the presence of which seemed unnecessary—but this was not so thought by the Doctor, who also favored the Medical Repository with observations on the conversion of iron into steel, in which there is but a single reference to phlogiston, but unfortunately this single reference spoils the general argument and the correct and evident interpretation of the reaction. It reads as follows:
Iron is convertible into steel by imbibing only phlogiston from the charcoal with which it is cemented.