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Question

In 1774, a British clergyman named Joseph Priestley conducted an experiment in which he focussed sunrays on a tube containing mercuric oxide. This produced a gas which he noticed made candles burn brighter, thus discovering a gas which is the very essence of life. What gas was it?
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A
Carbon dioxide
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B
Nitrogen
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C
Oxygen
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D
Helium
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Solution

The correct option is B Oxygen
  • Joseph Priestley was hugely productive in research and widely notorious in philosophy. He invented carbonated water and the rubber eraser, identified a dozen key chemical compounds, and wrote an important early paper about electricity.
  • He found that air is not an elementary substance, but a composition, or mixture, of gases. The world recalls Priestley best as the man who discovered oxygen, the active ingredient in our planet's atmosphere.

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