The discovery of oxygen : part 2 / Experiments by Carl Wilhelm Scheele (1777).

  • Scheele, Carl Wilhelm, 1742-1786.
Date:
1901
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The discovery of oxygen : part 2 / Experiments by Carl Wilhelm Scheele (1777). Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    to expand gradually. After this I permitted everything to cool, and tied up the bladder. Lastly I removed it from the neck of the retort. I filled a bottle, which contained 10 ounces of water, with this gas (§ 30, e.), I then placed a small lighted candle in it; scarcely had this been done when the candle began to burn with a large flame, whereby it gave out such a bright light that it was sufficient to dazzle the eyes. I mixed one part of this air with three parts of that kind of air in which fire would not burn ; I had here an air which was like the ordinary air in every respect. Since this air is necessarily required for the origination of fire, and makes up about the third part of our common air, I shall call it after this, for the sake of shortness, Fire-air; but the other air which is not in the least serviceable for the fiery phenomenon, and makes up about two-thirds of our air, I shall desig- nate after this with the name already known, of Vitiated Air. 30. Anyone might ask me in what way I bring air from one vessel into another. I find it necessary therefore to describe this in the first place. My arrange- ments and vessels are the very simplest that one can possibly have: flasks, retorts, bottles, glasses, and ox bladders are the things which I employ. The bladders, while they are still fresh, are rubbed, and blown up very fully, then tightly tied and hung up to dry. When I wish to use such a bladder and find it blown up just as fully as at first, I am thereby assured that it is tight. (a.) When I wish to collect any kind of air in a bladder, for example the phlogisticated acid of nitre (§ 13), I take a soft bladder smeared inside with a few drops of oil, and place in it some filings of a metal, as iron, zinc, or tin; I then press the air as completely as possible out of the bladder and tie it very tightly over a small bottle into which some aqua fortis has been