The discovery of oxygen, part 1. : experiments / by Joseph Priestley, LL.D. (1775).

  • Priestley, Joseph, 1733-1804.
Date:
1894
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The discovery of oxygen, part 1. : experiments / by Joseph Priestley, LL.D. (1775). Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    gisticated, the candle burns with a crackling noise, as if it was full of some combustible matter. It may be inferred, from the very great explosions made in dephlogisticated air, that, were it possible to fire gunpowder in it, less than a tenth part of the charge, in all cases, would suffice; the force of an explosion in this kind of air, far exceeding what might have been expected from the purity of it, as shewn in other kinds of trial. But I do not see how it is possible to make this applica- tion of it. I should not, however, think it difficult to confine gunpowder in bladders, with the interstices of the grains filled with this, instead of common air; and such bladders of gunpowder might, perhaps, be used in mines, or for blowing up rocks, in digging for metals, &c. Nothing, however, would be easier than to augment the force of fire to a prodigious degree, by blowing it with dephlogisticated air instead of common air. This I have tried, in the presence of my friend Mr. Magellan, by filling a bladder with it, and puffing it, through a small glass-tube, upon a piece of lighted wood : but it would be very easy to supply a pair of bellows with it from a large reservoir. Possibly much greater things might be effected by chymists, in a variety of respects, with the prodigious heat which this air may be the means of affording them. I had no sooner mentioned the discovery of this kind of air to my friend Mr. Michell, than this use of it occurred to him. He observed that possibly platina might be melted by means of it. From the greater strength and vivacity of the flame of a candle, in this pure air, it may be conjectured, that it might be peculiarly salutary to the lungs in certain morbid cases, when the common air would not be sufficient to carry off the phlogistic putrid effluvium fast enough. But, perhaps, we may also infer from these experiments,