C 181 3 
mable, and, upon the whole, I concluded that it was 
fo when it was diminifhed a little more than 
one half : for a quantity which was diminilhed 
exactly one half had fomething inflammable in it, 
but in the flighteft degree imaginable. 
Finding that water would imbibe inflammable air, 
I endeavoured to impregnate water with it, by the 
fame procels by which I had made water imbibe 
fixed air; but though 1 found that diftiiled water 
would imbibe about one fourteenth of its bulk of in- 
flammable air, I could not perceive that the tafte of 
it was fenfibly altered . 
IV. 
Of Air infected with animal respiration, 
or putrefaction,. 
That candles will burn only a certain time, is a 
faCt not better known, than it is that animals can 
live only a certain time, in a given quantity of air ; 
but the caufe of the death of the animal is not better 
known than that of the extinction of flame in the 
fame circumftances ; and when once any quantity of 
air has been rendered noxious by animals breathing 
in it as long as they could, I do not know that any 
methods have been difcovered of rendering it fit ior 
breathing again.. It is evident, however, that there 
mu ft be fome provifion in nature for this purpofe, as-, 
well as for that of rendering the air fit for fuftaining 
flame ; for without it the whole mafs of the atmo- 
iphere would, in time, become unfit for the purpofe 
of animal life;, and yet there is no reafon to think 
ihat.it is, atprefent, at all lefs fit for refpiration than . 
it'.: 
