1774 in science

The year 1774 in science and technology involved some significant events.

Astronomy

Italian physicist Abbé Bonaventura Corti publishes Osservazioni microscopiche sulla tremella e sulla circulazione del fluido in una pianta acquajuola in Lucca, including his discovery of cyclosis in plant cells.^[1]
French physician Antoine Parmentier publishes Examen chymique des pommes de terres in Paris, analysing the nutritional value of the potato.

August 1 – Joseph Priestley, working at Bowood House, Wiltshire, England, isolates oxygen in the form of a gas, which he calls "dephlogisticated air".^[2]
Antoine Lavoisier publishes his first book, a literature review on the composition of air, Opuscules physiques et chimiques.
Carl Wilhelm Scheele discovers "dephlogisticated muriatic acid" (chlorine), manganese and barium.

Second voyage of James Cook
- June 16/17 – English explorer Captain Cook becomes the first European to sight (and name) Palmerston Island in the Pacific Ocean.
- September 4 – Cook becomes the first European to sight (and name) the island of New Caledonia in Melanesia.
- October 10 – Cook becomes the first European to sight (and name) Norfolk Island in the Pacific Ocean, uninhabited at this date.

P.-S. Laplace publishes Mémoire sur la probabilité des causes par les événements, including a restatement of Bayes' theorem.^[3]

William Hunter's Anatomia uteri humani gravidi tabulis illustrata | The Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus exhibited in figures is published by John Baskerville in Birmingham, England.
Sugita Genpaku's Kaitai Shinsho ("New Text on Anatomy"), based on a Dutch publication, is published with illustrations in Japan, the first modern anatomy textbook produced there.

The Schiehallion experiment is carried out by Nevil Maskelyne to determine the mean density of the Earth.^[4]

January 27 – John Wilkinson patents a method for boring cannon from the solid, subsequently utilised for accurate boring of steam engine cylinders.^[5]
Jesse Ramsden produces an advanced circular dividing engine with the support of the Board of Longitude.^[6]^[7]

^ Hughes, Arthur (1959). A History of Cytology. London: Abelard-Schuman. p. 41.
^ Priestley, Joseph (1775). "An Account of Further Discoveries in Air". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. 65: 384–94. doi:10.1098/rstl.1775.0039. JSTOR 106209.
^ McGrayne, Sharon Bertsch (2011). The Theory That Would Not Die. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-16969-0.
^ "An account of Observations made on the Mountain Schehallien for finding its attraction". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (London) 6 July 1775.
^ Harris, J. R. (2004). "Wilkinson, John (1728–1808)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 2011-01-14. (subscription or UK public library membership required)
^ Boorstin, Daniel J. (1983). The Discoverers: a history of man's search to know his world and himself. New York: Random House. ISBN 978-0-394-40229-1.
^ Daumas, Maurice (1953). Les Instruments scientifiques aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
^ "Copley Medal | British scientific award". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 21 July 2020.
^ Messbarge, Rebecca (2019). The Lady Anatomist: The Life and Work of Anna Morandi Manzolini. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. p. 168. ISBN 978-0-22652-083-4.