VOL. LXIX.J PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 543 



Q2 grains of inflammable air extracted from mud or marshes, and 150 grains of 

 that extracted from oil of vitriol and spirit of wine. 



I was much pleased with the abovementioned experiment, and immediately 

 thought that the operation of extracting this inflammable air or vapour could 

 be dispensed with by employing vitriolic aether, which in reality is contained in 

 the vapour expelled by heat from oil of vitriol and spirit of wine, which vapour, 

 condensed in the process of distillation, yields aether. Having arrived in this 

 capital in the beginning of January 1778» I lost no time in pursuing my idea. 

 For this purpose I poured some drops of aether into a strong glass tube, and 

 directed an electrical explosion from a Leyden phial through it; but, to my 

 mortification, no explosion happened. I then threw a bit of cotton, dipped in 

 aether, into the same tube, but it would not take fire. Though these first trials 

 proved unsuccessful, I was too much persuaded, that in some way or other it 

 must succeed, to be discouraged. I tried it in several different ways, and at last, 

 before the end of January, I succeeded once or twice in producing a loud ex- 

 plosion, by throwing into the tube a little bit of paper dipped in aether. But as 

 the experiment often failed, I did not venture to show it to my friends till I had 

 hit on a method, the certainty of which would prevent my being exposed to 

 some confusion by exhibiting an experiment which was so apt to fail. However, 

 I told some few of my friends, early in the spring, that I had found out a 

 method of firing an inflammable air pistol without being at the trouble of 

 making inflammable air in the ordinary way; as I produced it at pleasure in an 

 instant, without any trouble or apparatus; and that I would show them the 

 experiment as soon as I was sure of succeeding constantly. In the mean time I 

 continued to produce this air before my acquaintance in the way I had seen it 

 produced at Amsterdam. Soon after, hitting on better and surer methods of 

 succeeding, I began to show it to those who came to visit me, and in the be- 

 ginning of the summer I made no scruple of showing it to every body. 



The reasons why I did not succeed in the beginning I found afterwards to be, 

 either that I employed too great a quantity of aether, or that the air or vapour 

 of the aether poured into the air pistol, which would not produce an explosion 

 when the pistol was not shaken, made a very loud one when it was forcibly 

 agitated. The surest method of succeeding I find to be the following: I dip a 

 small glass tube, open on both sides, and the bore of which is a 1 2th of an inch 

 in diameter, into a phial containing aether, and when 1 or 3 drops of the liquid 

 have entered the tube, I apply my finger to the upper end of it, to keep the 

 liquor suspended. I take the tube out of the phial, and thrust it immediately 

 into a small caoutchouck, or elastic gum bottle: I then withdraw my finger from 

 the tube,. and take it out of the caoutchouck; thus the little quantity of aether, 

 suspended in the end of the tube, is dropped into the caoutchouck, the neck of 



