ployed.. This aëriform acid was called fixed or fixable air by the chemists who first discovered it; they did not then know whether it was air resembling that of the atmosphere, or some other elastic fluid, vitiated and corrupted by combustion; but since it is now ascertained to be an acid, formed like all others by the oxygenation of its peculiar base, it is obvious that the name of fixed air is quite ineligible[1].
By burning charcoal in the apparatus mentioned p. 60, Mr de la Place and I found that one lib. of charcoal melted 96 libs. 6 oz. of ice; that, during the combustion, 2 libs. 9 oz. 1 gros. 10 grs. of oxygen were absorbed, and that 3 libs. 9 oz. 1 gros. 10 grs. of acid gas were formed. This gas weighs 0.695 parts of a grain for each cubical inch, in the common standard temperature and pressure mentioned above, so that 34,242 cubical inches of acid gas are produced by the combustion of one pound of charcoal.
I might multiply these experiments, and show by a numerous succession of facts, that all acids are formed by the combustion of certain substances; but I am prevented from doing so in
- ↑ It may be proper to remark, though here omitted by the author, that, in conformity with the general principles of the new nomenclature, this acid by Mr Lavoisier and his coleagues called the carbonic acid, and when the aëriform state carbonic acid gas. E.
