Quantity of Gases absorbed by Water, &c. 37 
knowledge of this gas, and skill in its preparation, I place more 
confidence than in my own, 100 inches of water at 45°, take up 
54 of nitrous oxide, the residuum being about one half the 
volume of the gas absorbed. 
4. Less absorbable Gases. 
The experiments with those gases which are absorbed only 
in sparing proportion by water, I could not conveniently make 
at more than one temperature; nor, indeed, did the object 
appear to me worthy of the time and attention which such a 
repetition of them would have required. Of the accuracy of the 
following, however, I satisfied myself, by repeating each two 
or three times ; and with gases of the greatest attainable purity 
100 cubic inches of water, at 6o°, absorb, 
Of nitrous gas - - 5 inches. 
Oxygenous gas - - - 2.63 
Phosphuretted hydrogen ditto - 2.14 
Gaseous oxide of carbon - - 2.01 
Carburetted hydrogen gas - - 1.40 
Azotic gas - - - 1.20 
Hydrogen gas - - - 1.08 
The solubility of atmospherical air cannot easily be ascer- 
tained; for, as I shall hereafter shew, in a memoir on the 
expulsion of gases from water by each other, air is decomposed 
by agitation with boiled water, its oxygenous portion being 
absorbed in preference. 
From the statements given by various philosophers, (the Abb6 
Nollet, Drs. Hales, Priestley, and Pearson,) of the quantity 
of air separable from water of different kinds, by heat or a 
diminished pressure, I expected that a much larger propor- 
tion of the gases constituting the atmosphere would have been 
absorbed by water, than the above numbers assign. It is to be 
