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not be fare of if,, fometimes about three pints of 
it Teeming to be about half a grain heavier, and at 
other times as much lighter than common air. 
Having, among other kinds of air, expofed a 
quantity of nitrous air, to water out of which the 
air had been well boiled, in the experiment to 
which I have more than once referred, as having 
been the occafion of feveral new and important ob- 
fervations, I found that of the whole was ab- 
fcrbed. Perceiving, to my great furprize, that fo 
very great a proportion of this kind of air was 
mifcible with water, I immediately began to agi- 
tate a confiderable quantity of it, in ajar {landing 
in a trough of the fame land of water; and with 
about four times as much agitation as fixed air re- 
quires, it was fo far abforbed by the water, that 
only about one fifth remained. This remainder 
extinguilhed flame, and was noxious to animals. 
Afterwards I diminUhed a pretty large quantity of 
it to one eighth of its original bulk, and the re- 
mainder flill retained much of its peculiar fmell, 
and diminifhed common air a little. A moufe 
alfo died in it* but not fo fuddenly as it would 
have done in pure nitrous air. In this operation 
the peculiar fmell of nitrous air is very manifeil, 
the water being firfc impregnated with the air, 
and then tranfmitting it to the common atmof- 
phere. 
This experiment gave me the hint of impreg-- 
nating water with nitrous air, in the manner in 
which X had before done it with fixed air j and I 
prefently found that diftilled -water would imbibe 
about one tenth of its bulk of this kind of air, and 
' ,k " - that 
