300 EXPERIMENTS AND OBSERVATIONS 



chouc bottle ; a small receiver was adapted ; and a slight heat 

 having been applied, to expel a little of the air, the joining was 

 made close by cement. The receiver was surrounded with a 

 freezing mixture, and heat was applied by a chofFer to the re- 

 tort, as far as could be done, without raising dense vapours. 

 Globules of liquid, perfectly limpid, collected pretty copious- 

 ly towards the middle and lower part of the neck, and the re- 

 ceiver, on being removed from the freezing mixture, was co- 

 vered internally with a film of moisture. The globules in the 

 neck of the retort were absorbed by a slip of bibulous paper, 

 and the quantity was found to amount to 1.2 gr. The recei- 

 ver being dried carefully, and weighed, lost by the dissipation 

 of the moisture within, 0.4 grain. Distilled water, in which 

 the bibulous paper was immersed, was quite acid ; it gave no 

 sensible turbidness on the addition of ammonia, or of carbo- 

 nate of soda, and held dissolved, therefore, merely pure muria- 

 tic acid. The mass in the retort was of a grey colour, with 

 metallic lustre, in loosely aggregated laminae, somewhat flexi- 

 ble. It weighed 114.8 grains. Adding to this increase of 

 weight, which the zinc had gained, the weight of the water and 

 the hydrogen gas expelled, it gives a consumption of muriatic 

 acid gas of about 16.8 grains, equivalent to about 43 cubic 

 inches. Supposing the weight of water to be doubled, or near- 

 ly so, by saturation with muriatic acid, this gives the product 

 of water in the experiment, as equal to nearly one grain ; or 

 about one-fifth of the whole quantity of combined water, which 

 muriatic acid gas is calculated to contain *. 



In 



• The action of the metals on the muriatic acid gas, taking place in the above 

 experiments at a heat comparatively moderate, it occurred to me, that they 

 might exert a similar action with no higher heat on the acid, in muriate of am- 



monia 



