'■-2 o 6 Cotthiudtion of the Experiments and Obfervations 
v, * • 
• bibed one- fourteenth of it, its tade is no way altered, as Dr. 
Priestley has obferved. i pr. 196. Water alfo eafily im- 
bibes common air : when, therefore, inflammable air is api- 
O 
tated in water having a communication with the atmofphere, 
-the inflammable air muft necefiarilv be diminished by reafon of 
its ablorbtion, and the part fo abforbed immediately efcapes 
out of the water into the atmofphere, as is evident by the 
fmell which is perceived when the quantity of inflammable air 
us conflderable. This efcape gives room for the further ab- 
forbtion of the inflammable air which then efcapes in the fame 
manner. I11 the mean time the common air under the jar rifeS 
into it, as appears by the dire6t experiments both of Dr. 
priestley * and Mr. fontana ; and hence the air in the jar 
muft appear by the nitrous flightly phlogidicated and refera- 
ble ; but a further agitation will decompofe the common air, 
as we (hall foon fee, and then a candle will be extinguilhed. 
The fame procefs takes place when inflammable air (lands long 
in water whofe furface is expofed to the atmofphere. 
Another experiment of the fame tendency, but feemingly 
more deciflve, is to be found in the 4th vol. of Dr. priest- 
ley’s Obfervations, p. 368. There it is related, that a por- 
tion of inflammable air, inclofed in a glafs tube, hermetically 
fealed and heated until the glafs was foftened, (lained the glafs 
black, and the tube being opened, the air was found reduced 
to one-third of its bulk ; and this refiduum was found to be' 
mere phlogijlicated air , neither precipitating lime-water, nor 
being affected by nitrous air, or in the lead inflammable. Yet 
decifive as this experiment appears, a little confideration will 
(hew the abfolute impoflibility that inflammable air (hould con- 
fid of one-third phlogidicated air and two-thirds phlogidon r 
* 1 pr. 96. 159, 3 tr, 156. Phil. Tranf. 1779, p.443. 
for, 
