69 



times in a minute. The volume of air was not sen- 

 sibly diminished, but it lost y~ of its bulk by being 

 washed in an alkaline solution *. From these facts, 

 we learn, that insects, by their respiration, consume 

 the oxygenous portion of the air : that carbonic acid 

 is, at the same time, produced ; and that, when all 

 the oxygen gas has disappeared, the animal no long- 

 er survives. 



54. M. Huber found, that bees very speedily die 

 when put into nitrogen gas, but that they survive in 

 a close vessel of atmospheric air, until almost the 

 last atom of its oxygen gas is consumed ! We 

 likewise confined a number of flies in a flask, con- 

 taining nine cubic inches of air, and then inverted 

 it into a tall glass of mercury. By the third day, 

 the flies were all dead, and the mercury had risen con- 

 siderably into the neck of the flask. The residual air 

 lost about ^ by agitation with lime-water, and the 

 remainder did not suffer the smallest diminution by 

 being placed in contact for two days with phospho- 

 rus. These results, therefore, agree with those ob- 

 tained by Vauquelin, and prove farther, that, by the 

 respiration of flies, the whole of the oxygen gas of 

 the air disappears, and that a bulk of carbonic acid 

 nearly equal thereto is formed. The small diminu- 

 tion of bulk also which the air suffered, is to be re- 

 garded as a necessary consequence attending the con- 

 version of oxygen gas into carbonic acid, and which, 

 as it accounts for the whole loss the air experienced, 



Ann. de Chitnie, torn. xii. 



t Mem. sur la Germination, &c. par M. M. Huber et Senncbier. 



E3 



