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III. Experiments on the Quantity of Gases absorbed by Water, 
at different Temperatures , and under different Pressures. By 
Mr. William Henry. Communicated by the Right Hon. Sir 
Joseph Banks, K. B. P. R. S. 
Read December 23, 1802. 
Though the solubility of an individual gas in water forms, 
generally, a part of its chemical history, yet this property has 
been overlooked, in the examination of several species of the 
class of aeriform substances. The carbonic acid, indeed, is the 
only gas whose relation to water has been an object of much 
attention; and, at a very early period of its history, Mr. 
Cavendish, in the course of inquiries, the results of which were 
the groundwork of the most important subsequent discoveries, 
ascertained, with peculiar care, the proportion of carbonic acid 
gas condensible in water, at the temperature of 55 0 of Fahren- 
heit. Dr. Priestley also, about the same period, directed his 
attention to the saturation of water with fixed air, and contrived 
a simple and effectual mode of obtaining this impregnation. 
His apparatus, afterwards, gave way to the more manageable 
one of Dr. Nooth ; and this, in its turn, has been superseded 
by the improved mode of condensing, into water, many times 
its bulk of various gases, invented and practised by several 
chemical artists, (as well as by myself,) both in this country 
and abroad. 
The influence of pressure, in accomplishing this strong im- 
pregnation, was first, I believe, suggested by Dr. Priestley. 
