I 186 ] 



'clofed with ground floppies, the affinity between 

 ;this noxious air and the common air might be To 

 great, that they would mix through a body of water 

 interpofed 'between them ; the water continually re- 

 ceiving from the one, and giving to the other, efpe- 

 cially as water receives fome kinds of impregnation 

 from, I believe, every kind of air to which it is con- 

 tiguous ; but I have feen no reafon to conclude, that 

 a mixture of any kind of air with the common air 

 can be produced in this manner. I have kept air in 

 which mice have died, air in which candles have 

 turned out, and inflammable air, feparated from 

 the common air, by the flighted partition of water 

 that I could well make, fo that it might not eva- 

 porate in a day or two, if I mould happen not to 

 attend to them ; but I found no change in them 

 after a month or fix weeks. The inflammable air 

 was (till inflammable, mice died inftantly in the aip 

 in which other mice had died before, and candles 

 would not burn where they had burned out before. 

 • Since -air tainted with animal or vegetable pu- 

 trefaction is the fame thing with air rendered no- 

 xious by animal refpiration, I mall now recite the 

 obfervations which I have made upon this kind of any 

 before I treat of the method of reftoring them. 



That thefe two kinds of air are, in fac~t, the fame- 

 thing, I conclude from their having feveral remark- 

 able common properties, and from their differing in- 

 nothing that I have been able to obferve. They' 

 equally extinguim flame, they are equally noxious- 

 ts animals, they are equally, and in the fame way, 

 ejffenfive to the fmelJ, they are equally diminilhed; 



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