CALORIC THE CAUSE OF OXIDATION. 219 



life, could not go on. Nay, more, all the phe- 

 nomena of health and disease are immediately 

 connected with temperature, from the slightest 

 invasion of a chill, the coldness of cholera or 

 the black death, to the most scorching fever. 



Nearly all the phenomena of Chemistry may 

 be referred to combustion and solution. Every 

 process of fermentation, respiration, and putre- 

 faction, are slow combustions, to which caloric 

 is equally essential, as to every case of solution, 

 vaporization, and gasefaction. It is well known 

 to every practical chemist, that water is gene- 

 rated by combustion that nitrogen, carbon, sul- 

 phur, phosphorus, selenium, chlorine, iodine, 

 boron, arsenic, and some other bodies, have no 

 affinity for oxygen at very low temperatures ; 

 but that when caloric is added in sufficient 

 quantities, a rapid oxidation takes place, as in 

 ordinary combustion, by which acids are gene- 

 rated that when potassium, sodium, barium, 

 lithium, calcium, magnesium, and strontium, 

 are heated in atmospheric air, they combine 

 rapidly with its oxygen, forming alkalies that 

 when aluminum, glucinum, yttrium, thorinum, 

 and zirconium, are heated with oxygen gas, new 

 compounds are generated, termed earthy bases 

 and that when the other metals are exposed 

 to a high temperature, they are converted into 

 acids and metallic oxides. 



At the temperature of 32 F. iron has no per- 



