Take the purest Salt-petre in powder; put it into a large crucible, which it may but half fill; set the crucible in a common furnace, and surround it with coals. When it is red-hot the Nitre will melt, and become as fluid as water. Then throw into the crucible a small quantity of charcoal-dust: the Nitre and the Charcoal will immediately deflagrate with violence; and a great commotion will be raised, accompanied with a considerable hissing, and abundance of black smoke. As the charcoal wastes, the detonation will abate, and cease entirely as soon as the coal is quite consumed. Then throw into the crucible the same quantity of charcoal-dust as before, and the same phenomena will be repeated. Let this coal also be consumed: then add more, and go on in the same manner till you can excite no further deflagration; always observing to let the burning coal be entirely consumed before you add any fresh. When no deflagration ensues, the matter contained in the crucible will have lost much of its fluidity. _OBSERVATIONS._ Nitre will not take fire, unless the inflammable matter added to it be actually burning, or the Nitre itself red-hot, and so thoroughly ignited, as immediately to kindle it. Therefore, if you would procure the detonation of Nitre with charcoal, and make use of cold charcoal, as in the process, the Nitre in the crucible must be red-hot, and in perfect fusion: but you may also use live coals, and then the Nitre need not be red-hot. It is proper that the crucible used in this experiment should be only half full; for during the detonation its contents swell, and might run over without this precaution. For the same reason the charcoal-dust is to be thrown in by little and little; and that first put in must be entirely consumed before any fresh be added. The matter remaining in the crucible after the operation is a very strong Fixed Alkali. Being exposed to the air it quickly attracts the moisture thereof, and runs into a liquor. It is called _Alkalizated Nitre_, or, to distinguish it from Nitre alkalizated by other inflammable matters, _Nitre fixed by charcoal_. However, this Alkali is not absolutely pure. It still contains a portion of the Nitre that hath not been decomposed. For when there remains but a little of this salt mixed with a great quantity of Alkali, which is not inflammable, the Alkali in some measure shelters it, coats it over, and obstructs that immediate contact with the inflammable matters applied, which is necessary to make it deflagrate.