Volume 1

Experiments and observations on different kinds of air, and other branches of natural philosophy, connected with the subject ... / being the former six volumes abridged and methodized, with many additions. By Joseph Priestley.

  • Priestley, Joseph, 1733-1804.
Date:
1790
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Experiments and observations on different kinds of air, and other branches of natural philosophy, connected with the subject ... / being the former six volumes abridged and methodized, with many additions. By Joseph Priestley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    468/482 (page 406)
    It is very remarkable, that when copper is dif- foived in pale fpirit of nitre, even diluted with much water, though the folution is evidently the moil ra- * pid at the firft, the produce of air is very trifling for a conflderable time, and the quantity collected in- creafes very gradually; whereas when the orange co- loured acid is employed, in the fame diluted ftate, the nitrous air is collected immediately, and the produdion is the moft copious at the firft. When I diflblved a quantity of copper in ftrong fpirit of nitre half diluted with water, no air what- ever was produced, though the metal was complete- ly diflblved. When, in the folution of mercury, I ufed the green fpirit of nitre, inftead of the pale coloured and ftrongeft acid, the phenomena were not ma- terially different from thofe defcribed above. The lower part of the acid next to the mercury aflumed a deeper green, but it never became orange co- loured.