“From the foregoing experiments it appears that when a mixture of inflammable and dephlogisticated air is exploded in such proportion that the burnt air is not much phlogisticated, the condensed liquor contains a little acid, which is always of the nitrous kind, whatever substance the dephlogisticated air is procured from; but if the proportion be such that the burnt air is almost entirely phlogisticated, the condensed liquor is not at all acid, but seems pure water, without any addition whatever; and as, when they are mixed in that proportion, very little air remains after the explosion, almost the whole being condensed, it follows that almost the whole of the inflammable and dephlogisticated air is converted into pure water.” The quantity of uncombined gas was so small that it must be regarded as an impurity. “There can be little doubt that it proceeds only from the impurities mixed with the dephlogisticated and inflammable air, and consequently that if those airs could be obtained perfectly pure, the whole would be condensed.” The next paragraph is interesting. “During the last summer also [of 1781] a friend of mine gave some account of them [these experiments] to Mr. Lavoisier, as well as of the conclusion drawn from them, that dephlogisticated air is only water deprived of phlogiston; but at that time, so far was Mr. Lavoisier from thinking any such opinion warranted, that, till he was prevailed upon to repeat the experiment himself, he found some difficulty in believing that nearly the whole of the two airs could be converted into water.” And next comes an important deduction. “Phlogisticated air appears to be nothing else than the nitrous acid united to phlogiston; for when nitre is deflagrated with charcoal, the acid is almost entirely converted into this kind of air.” This is the first statement of the true relation between nitrogen and nitric acid; we should now state the matter by the expression, “Nitrogen is nothing else than nitric acid deprived of oxygen.” And the further deduction is made that “it is well known that nitrous acid is also converted by phlogistication into nitrous air, in which respect there seems a considerable analogy between that and the vitriolic acid; for this acid, when united to a smaller proportion of phlogiston, forms the volatile sulphurous acid and vitriolic acid air, both of which, by exposure to the atmosphere, lose their phlogiston, though not very fast, and are turned back into the vitriolic acid; but when united to a greater proportion of phlogiston, it forms sulphur, which shows no signs of acidity.” “In like manner the nitrous acid, united to a certain quantity of phlogiston, forms nitrous acid and nitrous air, which readily quit their phlogiston to common air; but when united to a different, in all probability a larger quantity, it forms phlogisticated air, which shows no signs of acidity, and is still less disposed to part with its phlogiston than sulphur.”