[ 337 3 
XXIV. Experiments and Obfervations on the inflammable 
Air breathed by various Animals. By the Abbe Fon- 
tana, Director of the Cabinet of Natural Hiflory be- 
longing to his Royal Highnefs the Grand Duke of 
Tufcanv ; communicated by John Paradife, Efq. F. R. S.- 
HILOSOPHERS believed, till lately, that inflam- 
mable air had the power of killing animals who 
breathed it. Dr. priestley, to whom we are much 
indebted for many difcoveries and obfervations relative 
to inflammable air, made in confequence of Mr. ca- 
vendish’s excellent paper on that fubjedt, aflures us, 
that inflammable air caufes the death of animals as 
readily as fixed air, and that animals die convulfed in 
it. The dodtor adds, that water abforbed about one quar- 
ter of the inflammable air fhaken in it, after which a 
moufe lived in it as long as it would have lived in an 
equal quantity of common air. This air breathed by 
the moufe was ftill inflammable, though not fo much as 
before. 
Read March 1 1, 1779. 
Mr., 
