CHAPTER VIII 



THE BURNING OF INFLAMMABLE GASES, LIQUIDS, AND 

 SOLIDS 



A. AN INFLAMMABLE OXIDE OF CARBON. 



Lassone (1776) prepares an inflammable gas by 

 reducing the calx of zinc with charcoal. The loss of 

 weight, which takes place when a calx such as litharge is 

 reduced to a metal by heating it with charcoal, was proved 

 by Lavoisier to be due to the escape of a very large volume 

 of fixed air (carbonic anhydride). A different, and some- 

 what perplexing, result was observed when the white calx of 

 zinc was reduced in this way. This experiment, which was 

 carried out by Lassone in 1776, gave rise to an inflammable 

 gas, but one that differed in a very marked way from the 

 inflammable air (or hydrogen) which he obtained by the 

 action of alkalis, as well as of acids, upon the metal. 



" From a mixture of a half-ounce [288 grains] of zinc 

 calx and a gros [72 grains] of charcoal powder put into a 

 pistol barrel, I extracted in the fire of a forge 96 cubic 

 inches of a gas, which burns rapidly without detonating ; 

 the flame is blue : this kind of air at first permanent 

 mixes afterwards little by little with water, it does not 

 redden nitrous air." 



" Two gros [144 grains] of Prussian blue submitted in a 

 pistol barrel to the action of a forge fire, gave more than 



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