504 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I67O. 



surface of the liquor, within a quarter of a minute or less, there will, upon this 

 contact, be elevated a copious white smoke, which will not only fill the upper 

 part of the glass, but plentifully pass out into the open air, till the phial be again 

 stopped. 



My purpose in this tract, to forbear sidings In controversies, keeps me from 

 taking notice of the speculations suggested by some of the phaenomena of this 

 liquor ; which yet I thought I might lawfully mention, as far as I have done it, 

 because it but adventures upon giving one of the uses rather of the air, than 

 immediately of respiration itself; and is brought but to illustrate what I have 

 not found denied by any, though considered by very few ; namely, the office of 

 the air to carry off in expiration the fuliginous steams of the lungs. For in our 

 experiment we manifestly see, that the very contact of the air may give the cor- 

 puscles of moist bodies a peculiar volatility, or facility to emerge in the form of 

 steams. I know there are some corrosive spirits, as in nitre and salt, simple, 

 or compounded of them, that, when they are very strong, emit for a while 

 manifest fumes ; but the difference of those liquors, and their inferiority to our 

 red spirit, in the capacity of smoking liquors, might easily enough be manifested, 

 if it were judged proper in this place, where it may suffice to take notice of 

 these two things : The one is, that when the phial has lain stopped and quiet a 

 competent time, the upper half of it will appear destitute of fumes, of which the 

 air, it seems, will imbibe and constantly retain but a certain moderate quantity ; 

 which may give some light towards the reason, why the same air which will be 

 quite clogged with steams, will not long serve for respiration, which requires 

 frequent supplies of fresh air : The other is, that if the unstopped phial were 

 placed in our vacuum, it would not emit any visible steams at all, nor so much 

 as to appear in the upper part of the glass itself that held the liquor ; whereas, 

 when the air was by degrees restored at the stop-cock, without moving the re- 

 ceiver itself, to avoid injuring its closeness, the returning air would presently 

 raise the fumes, first into the vacant part of the phial, whence they would ascend 

 into the capacity of the receiver ; and likewise, when the air that was requisite 

 to support them, was pumped out, they also accompanied it, as their unplea- 

 sant smell evinced, and the red spirit, though it remained unstopped, emitted 

 no more fumes till the new air was let in. 



One may compare with this liquor another smoking one, mentioned in the 

 29th of the first published pneumatical experiments, where an experiment is 

 related of it, that has something in common with this, and may so far serve 

 to confirm what is now delivered, as this also has some things additional to 

 that : besides that that liquor being made with ingredients corrosive, and of a 

 bad name among chemists themselves, the fumes that proceed from it may 



