To verify my hypothesis, I first put a small pot full of this kind of paint, and afterwards (which answered much better, by exposing a greater surface of the paint) I daubed several pieces of paper with it, and put them under a receiver, and observed, that in about twenty-four hours, the air was diminished between one fifth and one fourth, for I did not measure it very exactly. This air also was, as I expected to find, in the highest degree noxious; it did not effervesce with nitrous air, it was no farther diminished by a mixture of iron filings and brimstone, and was made wholesome by agitation in water deprived of all air. I think it appears pretty evident, from the preceding experiments on the calcination of metals that air is, some way or other, diminished in consequence of being highly charged with phlogiston; and that agitation in water restores it, by imbibing a great part of the phlogistic matter. That water has a considerable affinity with phlogiston, is evident from the strong impregnation which it receives from it. May not plants also restore air diminished by putrefaction by absorbing part of the phlogiston with which it is loaded? The greater part of a dry plant, as well as of a dry animal substance, consists of inflammable air, or something that is capable of being converted into inflammable air; and it seems to be as probable that this phlogistic matter may have been imbibed by the roots and leaves of plants, and afterwards incorporated into their substance, as that it is altogether produced by the power of vegetation. May not this phlogistic matter be even the most essential part of the food and support of both vegetable and animal bodies? In the experiments with metals, the diminution of air seems to be the consequence of nothing but a saturation with phlogiston; and in all the other cases of the diminution of air, I do not see but that it may be effected by the same means. When a vegetable or animal substance is dissolved by putrefaction, the escape of the phlogistic matter (which, together with all its other constituent parts, is then let loose from it) may be the circumstance that produces the diminution of the air in which it putrefies. It is highly improbable that what remains after an animal body has been thoroughly dissolved by putrefaction, should yield so great a quantity of inflammable air, as the dried animal substance would have done. Of this I have not made an actual trial, though I have often thought of doing it, and still intend to do it; but I think there can be no doubt of the result.