Classics of modern science : $b (Copernicus to Pasteur)
History
Classics of modern science : $b (Copernicus to Pasteur)
Science; Science -- History
In these experiments the inflammable air was procured from zinc, as it
was in all my experiments, except where otherwise expressed: but I made
two more experiments, to try whether there was any difference between
the air from zinc and that from iron, the quantity of inflammable air
being the same in both, namely, 0.331 of the common; but I could not
find any difference to be depended on between the two kinds of air,
either in the diminution which they suffered by the explosion, or the
test of the burnt air.
From the fourth experiment it appears, that 423 measures of inflammable
air are nearly sufficient to phlogisticate completely 1000 of common
air; and that the bulk of the remaining air after the explosion is then
very little more than four-fifths of the common air employed; so that
as common air cannot be reduced to a much less bulk than that by any
method of phlogistication, we may safely conclude, that when they are
mixed in this proportion, and exploded, almost all the inflammable air,
and about one-fifth part of the common air, lose their elasticity, and
are condensed into the dew which lines the glass.
The better to examine the nature of this dew, 500,000 grain measures
of inflammable air were burnt with about two and one-half times the
quantity of common air, and the burnt air made to pass through a glass
cylinder eight feet long and three-quarters of an inch in diameter,
in order to deposit the dew. The two airs were conveyed slowly into
this cylinder by separate copper pipes, passing through a brass plate
which stopped up the end of the cylinder; and as neither inflammable
nor common air can burn by themselves, there was no danger of the flame
spreading into the magazines from which they were conveyed. Each of
these magazines consisted of a large tin vessel, inverted into another
vessel just big enough to receive it. The inner vessel communicated
with the copper pipe, and the air was forced out of it by pouring water
into the outer vessel; and in order that the quantity of common air
expelled should be two and one-half times that of the inflammable, the
water was let into the outer vessels by two holes in the bottom of the
same tin pan, the hole which conveyed the water into that vessel in
which the common air was confined being two and one-half times as big
as the other.
In trying the experiment, the magazines being first filled with their
respective airs, the glass cylinder was taken off, and water let, by
the two holes, into the outer vessel, till the airs began to issue from
the ends of the copper pipes; they were then set on fire by a candle,
and the cylinder put on again in its place. By this means upwards of
135 grains of water were condensed in the cylinder, which had no taste
nor smell, and which left no sensible sediment when evaporated to
dryness; neither did it yield any pungent smell during evaporation; in
short, it seemed pure water.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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