Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air. Joseph Priestley
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be distinguished from very good Pyrmont, or rather Seltzer water.
But the most effectual way of impregnating water with fixed air is to put the vessels which contain the water into glass jars, filled with the purest fixed air made by the solution of chalk in diluted oil of vitriol, standing in quicksilver. In this manner I have, in about two days, made a quantity of water to imbibe more than an equal bulk of fixed air, so that, according to Dr. Brownrigg's experiments, it must have been much stronger than the best imported Pyrmont; for though he made his experiments at the spring-head, he never found that it contained quite so much as half its bulk of this air. If a sufficient quantity of quicksilver cannot be procured, oil may be used with sufficient advantage, for this purpose, as it imbibes the fixed air very slowly. Fixed air may be kept in vessels standing in water for a long time, if they be separated by a partition of oil, about half an inch thick. Pyrmont water made in these circumstances, is little or nothing inferior to that which has stood in quicksilver.
The readiest method of preparing this water for use is to agitate it strongly with a large surface exposed to the fixed air. By this means more than an equal bulk of air may be communicated to a large quantity of water in the space of a few minutes. But since agitation promotes the dissipation of fixed air from water, it cannot be made to imbibe so great a quantity in this method as in the former, where more time is taken.
Easy directions for impregnating water with fixed air I have published in a small pamphlet, designed originally for the use of seamen in long voyages, on the presumption that it might be of use for preventing or curing the sea scurvy, equally with wort, which was recommended by Dr. Macbride for this purpose, on no other account than its property of generating fixed air, by its fermentation in the stomach.
Water thus impregnated with fixed air readily dissolves iron, as Mr. Lane has discovered; so that if a quantity of iron filings be put to it, it presently becomes a strong chalybeate, and of the mildest and most agreeable kind.
I have recommended the use of chalk and oil of vitriol as the cheapest, and, upon the whole, the best materials for this purpose. But some persons prefer pearl ashes, pounded marble, or other calcareous or alkaline substances; and perhaps with reason. My own experience has not been sufficient to enable me to decide in this case.
Whereas some persons had suspected that a quantity of the oil of vitriol was rendered volatile by this process, I examined it, by all the chemical methods that are in use; but could not find that water thus impregnated contained the least perceivable quantity of that acid.
Mr. Hey, indeed, who assisted me in this examination, found that distilled water, impregnated with fixed air, did not mix so readily with soap as the distilled water itself; but this was also the case when the fixed air had passed through a long glass tube filled with alkaline salts, which, it may be supposed, would have imbibed any of the oil of vitriol that might have been contained in that air[2].
Fixed air itself may be said to be of the nature of an acid, though of a weak and peculiar sort.——Mr. Bergman of Upsal, who honoured me with a letter upon the subject, calls it the aërial acid, and, among other experiments to prove it to be an acid, he says that it changes the blue juice of tournesole into red. This Mr. Hey found to be true, and he moreover discovered that when water tinged blue with the juice of tournesole, and then red with fixed air, has been exposed to the open air, it recovers its blue colour again.
The heat of boiling water will expel all the fixed air, if a phial containing the impregnated water be held in it; but it will often require above half an hour to do it completely.
Dr. Percival, who is particularly attentive to every improvement in the medical art, and who has thought so well of this impregnation as to prescribe it in several cases, informs me that it seems to be much stronger, and sparkles more, like the true Pyrmont water, after it has been kept some time. This circumstance, however, shews that, in time, the fixed air is more easily disengaged from the water; and though, in this state, it may affect the taste more sensibly, it cannot be of so much use in the stomach and bowels, as when the air is more firmly retained by the water.
By the process described in my pamphlet, fixed air may be readily incorporated with wine, beer, and almost any other liquor whatever; and when beer, wine, or cyder, is become flat or dead (which is the consequence of the escape of the fixed air they contained) they may be revived by this means; but the delicate and agreeable flavour, or acidulous taste, communicated by fixed air, and which is very manifest in water, can hardly be perceived in wine, or any liquors which have much taste of their own.
I should think that there can be no doubt, but that water thus impregnated with fixed air must have all the medicinal virtues of genuine Pyrmont or Seltzer water; since these depend upon the fixed air they contain. If the genuine Pyrmont water derives any advantage from its being a natural chalybeate, this may also be obtained by providing a common chalybeate water, and using it in these processes, instead of common water.
Having succeeded so well with this artificial Pyrmont water, I imagined that it might be possible to give ice the same virtue, especially as cold is known to promote the absorption of fixed air by water; but in this I found myself quite mistaken. I put several pieces of ice into a quantity of fixed air, confined by quicksilver, but no part of the air was absorbed in two days and two nights; but upon bringing it into a place where the ice melted, the air was absorbed as usual.
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