THE GREAT LONDON CHEMISTS 39 



nob by phlogistication be changed into nitrous or vitri- 

 olic acid ' ; i.e. whether oxygen, by reduction, might not 

 be converted into nitric or sulphuric acid. Absorbing 

 the oxygen by burning sulphur, he failed to find nitric 

 acid; and using nitric oxide as the absorbent, the re- 

 sulting nitrate and nitrite contained no sulphate. He 

 therefore tried firing a mixture of hydrogen and air by 

 means of an electric spark ; an experiment which led to 

 the discovery of the composition of water. Having 

 burned 500,000 grain measures of inflammable air (hydro- 

 gen) with two and a half times its volume of common 

 air, he collected upwards of 135 grains of water, ' which 

 had no taste nor smell, and which left no sensible sedi- 

 ment when evaporated to dryness.' 



It is impossible in a short sketch like the present to 

 enter into a description of the exceedingly ingenious 

 experiments devised to show whence the acid was derived 

 which is formed when the hydrogen is present in insuf- 

 ficient amount ; we must be content to remember that in 

 default of hydrogen with which to combine, some of the 

 oxygen unites with the nitrogen, yielding nitrous and 

 nitric acids. 



Although Cavendish employs the language of the 

 phlogistic theory in stating his conclusions, yet it must 

 not be supposed that he was ignorant of the newer views, 

 propounded by Lavoisier. In the memoir which we have 

 been considering, he states his conclusions in the new 

 phraseology ; but he concludes as follows : ' It seems, 

 therefore, from what has been said, as if the phenomena 

 of nature might be explained very well on this principle 

 without the help of phlogiston; and indeed, as adding 

 dephlogisticated air to a body comes to the same thing 

 as depriving it of its phlogiston, and adding water to it, 

 and as there are perhaps no bodies entirely destitute of 

 water, and as I know no way by which phlogiston can be 



