Heads of Lectures on a Course of Experimental Philosophy: Particularly Including Chemistry Part 4

Water imbibes about twice its bulk of this kind of air, and it is then the same thing with the sulphureous waters of Harrowgate.

_Of Phosphoric Air._

Phosphoric air is produced by the solution of phosphorus in caustic fixed alkali. If this air be confined by mercury, it will take fire on being admitted to atmospheric, and much more to dephlogisticated air.

After agitation in water it loses this property, and the residuum is merely inflammable air, with no great diminution of its bulk. This kind of air, therefore, probably consists of phosphorus dissolved in inflammable air; though it cannot be made by melting it in inflammable air.

LECTURE VIII.

_Of Dephlogisticated Marine Acid Air._

This species of air is produced by heating spirit of salt with manganese; or more readily, by pouring acid of vitriol on a mixture of salt and manganese, in the proportion of about 16 of the former to 6 of the latter. In this case the acid of vitriol decomposes the salt, and the marine acid, disengaged in the form of air, takes dephlogisticated air from the manganese; so that this species of air seems to consist of marine acid vapour, and dephlogisticated air.

This species of air has a peculiarly pungent smell, and is absorbed by water as readily as fixed air.

The water takes about twice its bulk of it; and thereby acquires a yellowish tinge. Both this air, and the water impregnated with it, discharges vegetable colours from linen or cotton, and is thereby useful in bleaching.

This air when cold coagulates into a yellowish substance. It dissolves mercury, and with it forms _corrosive sublimate_.

_Of Phlogisticated Marine Acid Air._

Besides the preceding kinds of air which are slowly absorbed by water, there are others which are absorbed by it very rapidly, so that they cannot be confined but by mercury.

Of this kind is _phlogisticated marine acid air_, procured by the acid of vitriol and common salt; the former seizing upon the alkaline basis of the latter, and thereby expelling the marine acid in the form of air.

It is called _phlogisticated_ to distinguish it from _dephlogisticated marine acid air_, which seems to be the same thing, with the addition of dephlogisticated air.

Phlogisticated marine acid air is heavier than common air. It extinguishes a candle with a blue flame. It dissolves many substances containing phlogiston, as iron, dry flesh, &c. and thereby forms a little inflammable air. Water absorbs 360 times its bulk of this air, and is then the strongest spirit of salt. It absorbs one-sixth more than its bulk of alkaline air, and with it forms the common sal ammoniac. Its affinity to water enables it to dissolve ice, and to deprive borax, nitre, and other saline substances, of the water that enters into their composition.

LECTURE IX.

_Of Vitriolic Acid Air._

Vitriolic acid air is procured by heating in hot acid of vitriol almost any substance containing phlogiston, especially the metals which are soluble in that acid, as copper, mercury, &c. This kind of air is heavier than common air, and extinguishes a candle, but without any particular colour of its flame. It will not dislodge the nitrous or marine acids from any substance containing them.

By its affinity to water it deprives borax of it.

One measure of this air saturates two of alkaline air, and with it forms the vitriolic ammoniac.

Water imbibes between 30 and 40 times its bulk of this air, and retains it when frozen. Water thus impregnated dissolves some metals, and thereby yields inflammable air.

If this water be confined in a gla.s.s tube, together with common air, and be exposed to a long continued heat, it forms real sulphur, the dephlogisticated part of the common air being imbibed, and forming real vitriolic acid, which uniting with the phlogiston in the air, forms the sulphur. Also this air mixed with atmospheric air will, without heat, imbibe some part of it, and thereby become the common acid of vitriol; so that water impregnated with vitriolic acid air, commonly called _sulphureous_, or _phlogisticated acid of vitriol_, wants dephlogisticated air to make it the common acid of of vitriol.

This kind of air is imbibed by oils, which thereby change their colour; whale oil becoming red, olive oil of an orange colour, and spirit of turpentine of the colour of amber.

If this air be confined in a gla.s.s tube by mercury, and the electric spark be taken in it, a black tinge will be given to the gla.s.s contiguous to the spark, and this black substance appears to be mercury super-phlogisticated; since by exposure to air it becomes running mercury: so that the vapour of mercury must be diffused through every part of this air, to the distance of at least several feet from the surface of the mercury.

_Of Fluor Acid Air._

Fluor acid air is procured by dissolving the earthy substance called _fluor_ in vitriolic acid.

This kind of air extinguishes a candle, and, like vitriolic acid air, one measure of it saturates two of alkaline air. It is peculiar to this kind of air to dissolve gla.s.s when it is hot.

It seems to consist of a peculiar acid vapour united to the stony substance of the fluor; for water being admitted to it absorbs the acid vapour, and the stony substance is deposited. By this means it exhibits an amusing appearance, whether water be admitted to a gla.s.s jar previously filled with that air, or the bubbles of air be admitted, as they are formed, to a quant.i.ty of water resting on mercury.

LECTURE X.

_Of Alkaline Air._

Alkaline air is produced by means of heat from caustic volatile alkali, and also from a mixture of sal-ammoniac and slaked lime, in the proportion of about one-fourth of the former to three-fourths of the latter. In this case the marine acid in the sal-ammoniac unites with the calcareous earth, and the volatile alkali (probably with the a.s.sistance of the water) takes the form of air.

This species of air is heavier than inflammable air, but lighter than any of the acid airs. Like them, however, it dissolves ice, and deprives alum, and some other saline substances, of the water which they contain. United with fixed air, it makes the concrete volatile alkali; with marine acid air, the common sal-ammoniac; and with water, the caustic volatile alkali.

The electric spark, or a red heat, converts alkaline air into three times its bulk of inflammable air; and the calces of metals are revived in alkaline, as well as in inflammable air; but there remains about one-fourth of its bulk of phlogisticated air. These facts shew that alkaline air consists chiefly of phlogiston.

_Miscellaneous Observations relating to Air._

The _nitrous_ acid may be exhibited in the form of air, as well as the vitriolic, the marine, and the fluor acids. But it cannot be confined even by mercury, which it instantly dissolves. It may, however, in some measure, be confined in a dry gla.s.s vessel, from which it will in a great measure expel the common air. This nitrous acid air is that red vapour, which is produced by the rapid solution of bis.m.u.th, and some other metals in the nitrous acid. But the vegetable acid cannot be exhibited in the form of air. It is only capable of being converted into vapour, like water: and in the common temperature of our atmosphere, returns to a state of fluidity.

Different kinds of air which have no affinity to each other, when once mixed together will not separate, notwithstanding any difference of specific gravity. Such is the case of a mixture of inflammable and dephlogisticated air, and even of inflammable and fixed air. Without this property also, the phlogisticated air, which const.i.tutes the greatest part of our atmosphere, being specifically lighter than dephlogisticated air, of which the other part of it consists, would separate from it, and ascend into the higher regions of the atmosphere.

Inflammable air, however, will not mix with acid or alkaline air.

Different kinds of air are expanded differently by the same degrees of heat; dephlogisticated air the least, and alkaline air the most.

If any fluid, as water, spirit of wine, or even mercury, be heated in a porous earthen vessel, surrounded by any kind of air, the vapour of the fluid will pa.s.s through the vessel _one_ way, while the air pa.s.ses the _other_; and when the operation ceases, with respect to the _one_, it likewise ceases with respect to the _other_.

LECTURE XI.

_Of Liquid Substances_;