The birth of chemistry / by G.F. Rodwell.

  • George Farrer Rodwell
Date:
1874
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The birth of chemistry / by G.F. Rodwell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    10. “That the dissolving parts of the air are but few whereas saltpetre is a menstruum, when melted and red hot, that abounds more with these dissolvent particles, and therefore as a small quantit'^ of it will dissolve a great sulphurous body^ so will the dissolution be very quick and violent.” It was well known that if a piece of rrd-hot char- coal be thrown into melted nitre, it is consumed with great rapidity, while in the air it burns with far less readiness; hence Hooke infers that that particular component of air which causes it to support com- bustion exists in a condensed form in saltpetre. He also remarks, that if air be violently forced upon a piece of ignited charcoal by bellows it may be made to burn almost as rapidly as in melted nitre. 12. “It seems reasonable to think that there is no such thing as an element of fire .... but that that shining transient body called flame is nothing else but a mixture of air and the volatile sulphurous parts of dissoluble or combustible bodies.” Hooke asserts that this theory had been worked out by him several years earlier, and had been well supported by experimental means: he says, moreover, that he has here “only time to hint an hypothesis, which, if God permit me life and opportunity, I may elsewhere prosecute, improve, and publish.” This he never did; but a young Oxford physician named John Mayow (b. 1645, d. 1679) eagerly accepted the theory, and adduced many experiments in support of it. Perhaps Mayow may have worked with Hooke during his residence in Oxford, and may have helped to adduce verifications of the then half-formed theory.
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