C *77 ] 
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 
specially 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* 
filver 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 diminifhed, by the abibrption 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 
flood in quickfilver went off at one explofion, ex- 
a£tly 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 veffels 
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 Hand fome days in water, 
that the fixed air might be abforbed, I applied a 
candle to it ; 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, 
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 affedted one ano- 
ther at all. 
Vol. LXII. A a 
Con* 
