I have learned that Prof. Bergman has my manuscript. I will hope that he is not the reason
for the delays”. On April 29, 1776, Bergman wrote to Scheele. “I have read the first sheets
of your treatise on [fire] and hope to see it in print soon.”
Instead, it may be that Swederus deliberately delayed the publication, at least
Bergman suspected so in a letter to Gahn: “Svederus [sic!] has taken every measure
so that Scheele’s book would not be sent out before the autumn fair in Leipzig […]
Although Swederus (and possibly the printer, Johan Edman) delayed the publication process by nearly 2 years, it was Scheele’s own fault that his book was
published later than Priestley’s book. Priestley’s Experiments and Observations on
Different Kinds of Air was printed in late 1775, by the time that Scheele finished his
manuscript. In retrospect, Scheele should have written a short communication of his
results and submitted it to the Transactions of the Royal Academy of Sciences in
order to secure his priority.
Fig. 21.5 Copper plate illustrating equipment used by Scheele to study air. Note how simple
Scheele’s equipment was, compared to the equipment used by Lavoisier. Photo Anders Lennartson
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21 The Discovery of Oxygen