AIR FROM FINERY CINDER AND CHARCOAL. 



& 



And in this eflential property the air from finery cinder and 

 charcoal agrees with them all, differing only in the proportion 

 of the fixed air procured in this manner. This, however, I 

 now find muft be called the gazeous oxide of carbon, while the 

 others are called hydro-carbonates; that being faid to con- 

 (ift of two parts oxigen to one of carbon, and the others to 

 be a folution of carbon in hidrogen, or the light inflammable 

 air. 



It cannot, however, be denied, that this gazeous oxide of It is inflammable 

 carbon is inflammable as well as the hydro-carbonates, in the dro-carbonates*" 

 compofition of which a portion of hidrogen (one of the compo- and cannot with 

 nent parts of water) is a necelfary ingredient. This air, there- leaned anwf- 

 fore, from finery cinder and charcoal, though called an oxide, ide, becaufe it is 

 muft be eflentially different from all the other oxides, none fW»buftible. 

 which are combuftible, being fubftances already faturated with 

 oxigen. Thus iron is a combuftible fubflance, ready to unite 

 with oxigen when prefented to it in a proper temperature ; 

 but when it is faturated with oxigen, and therefore called an 

 oxide of iron, it is no longer combuftible. It muft, therefore,, 

 as it appears to me, be an abfolute abandonment of one of the 

 molt fundamental principles of the new theory, to call the air 

 from finery cinder and charcoal an oxide. If .fubftances be 

 combuftible in proportion to their affinity to oxigen, and their 

 confequent readinefs to unite with it, this air, which is inflam- 

 mable, muft be of this clafs, and therefore the very reverfe of 

 the oxides, which are faturated with oxigen, and incapable of 

 receiving more. 



If this kind of air was a real oxide, it would appear to be Its oxigen has 



fo on the decompofition of it ; when, to make the refult un- ■*** be 5 n fe P*~ 



r ii-i rate< * or & ewn 



exceptionable, the oxigen it contained would either take the by tranfpofition, 



form, of dephlogifticated air, or become a component part of as happens with 



fome other mbftance into which oxigen was acknowledged to 



enter. But this has not been done. When it is decompofed 



by being fired together with dephlogifticated air, the fixed air 



which is then formed comes, I have no doubt,, from the oxigen 



in the dephlogifticated air, and the phlogifton in this (pedes of 



inflammable air; the fame being the refult, though not quite 



in the fame degree, of firing the heavy inflammable air from 



charcoal and water, from oil, &;c, 8?c. into which it is not pre-. 



tended that any oxigen enters. 



Mr, 



