A new experimental inquiry into the nature and qualities of the Cheltenham water / [A. Fothergill].

  • Anthony Fothergill
Date:
1788
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A new experimental inquiry into the nature and qualities of the Cheltenham water / [A. Fothergill]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    conlifling of a certain portion of vital and inflam¬ mable air.*— That it is produced, not only by the explofion of thefe two airs by the eledlrical fpark, but alfo by reviving mercury from'red pre- “ cipitate in alkaline air. In this inflance, fay they, the precipitate fupplies the vital, or dephlogifti- cated air; and the alkaline air, the phlogiflon.” But is it not Angular then, that no water is produced by reviving mercury from red precipitate? Water, I conceive to be eflential to the forma¬ tion of inflarrmable air, becaufe the latter cannot be produced from a folution of iron in the vitriolic acid, unlefs the acid be firfl: conflderably diluted with water. Now, admitting this, may not the water feemingly obtained from the combination of the two* airs, proceed from a precipitation of that fluid from the inflammable air? or, in other words, may not the water thus procured be con- fidered rather as a natural confequence of the de^ compojitlon of inflammable air, than a real produ&ion of water? In this light, it may not be amifs for the prefent to view this curious phenomenon, till the new dodlrine be more fully illuflrated by future ex¬ periments, though other arguments are not wanting which feem to prove water a real compound. * See Cavendifh’s Experiments, Philofophical Tranfaftlons, vol. Ixxiv. art. 13. Alfo M, Lavoifier’s Obferv. fur la Phyfique, tom. 23? p» Not
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