The discovery of oxygen, part 1 / Experiments by Joseph Priestley, LL.D. (1775).

  • Priestley, Joseph, 1733-1804.
Date:
1901
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The discovery of oxygen, part 1 / Experiments by Joseph Priestley, LL.D. (1775). Source: Wellcome Collection.

    17/64 (page 13)
    agitation in water will deprive the modified nitrous air of its property of admitting a candle to burn in it; yet, after more than ten times as much agitation as would be sufficient to produce this alteration in the nitrous air, no sensible change was produced in this. A candle still burned in it with a strong flame ; and it did not, in the least, diminish common air, which I have observed that nitrous air, in this state, in some measure, does. But I was much more surprized, when, after two days, in which this air had continued in contact with water (by which it was diminished about one twentieth of its bulk) I agitated it violently in water about five minutes, and found that a candle still burned in it as well as in common air. The same degree of agitation would have made phlogisticated nitrous air fit for respiration indeed, but it would certainly have extinguished a candle. These facts fully convinced me, that there must be a very material difference between the constitution of the air from mercurius calcinatus, and that of phlogisticated nitrous air, notwithstanding their resemblance in some particulars. But though I did not doubt that the air from mercurius calcinatus was fit for respiration, after being agitated in water, as every kind of air without exception, on which I had tried the experiment, had been, I still did not suspect that it was respirable in the first instance ; so far was I from having any idea of this air being, what it really was, much superior, in this respect, to the air of the atmosphere. In this ignorance of the real nature of this kind of air, I continued from this time (November) to the 1st of March following; having, in the mean time, been intent upon my experiments on the vitriolic acid air above recited, and the various modifications of air produced by spirit of nitre, an account of which will follow. But in the course of this month, I not only ascertained the