[ 177 3 



not been found that water can contain much more 

 than its own bulk of fixed air. But in other cafes I 

 have found the diminution of a quantity of air, and 

 cfpecially of fixed air, to be much greater than I 

 could well account for by any kind of abforption. 



The phial which had flood immerfed in quick* 

 iilver had loft very little of its original quantity ; and 

 being now opened in water, and left there, along 

 with a another phial, which was juft then filled, as 

 this had been three years before, with air half inflam- 

 mable and half fixed, I obferved that the quantity 

 of both was diminimed, by the ablbrption of the 

 water, in the fame proportion. 



Upon applying a candle to the mouths of the phials 

 which had been kept three years, that which had 

 ftood in quickfilver went off at one explofion, ex- 

 actly as it would have done if there had been a mix- 

 ture of common air, with the inflammable. As a 

 good deal depends upon the apertures of the, veflels 

 in which the inflammable air is fixed, I mixed the 

 two kinds of air in equal proportion in the fame 

 phial, and after letting it (land fome days in water, 

 that the fixed air might be abforbed, I applied a 

 candle to it j but it made ten or twelve explofions 

 (flopping the phial after each of them) before the 

 inflammable matter was exhaufted. 



The air which had been confined in the corked 

 phial exploded in the very fame manner as an equal 

 mixture of the two kinds of air in the fame phial 9 

 the experiment being made as foon as the fixed air 

 was abforbed, as before ; fo that, in this cafe, the two 

 kinds of air did not feem to have affected one ano- 

 ther at all. 



Vol. LXII. A a Con- 



