The inquiry is of so great practical consequence, that I need not offer any apology for reproducing it here in detail, with such additions as ulterior experience and the researches of others enable me to make. Professor Orfila takes no notice of this important subfect, except in a few lines containing several inaccurate statements.[1]
Distilled water, deprived of its gases by ebullition, and excluded from contact with the air, has no action whatever on lead. If the water contains the customary gases in solution, the surface of the metal, freshly polished, becomes quickly dull and white. But if the surface of the water be not at the same time exposed to the air, the action soon comes to a close.—When the air, on the other hand, is allowed free access to the water, a white powder appears in a few minutes on and around the lead; and this goes on increasing till in the course of a few days there is formed a large quantity of white matter which partly floats in the water or adheres to the lead, but is chiefly deposited on the bottom of the vessel. If this experiment be made with atmospheric air deprived of carbonic acid, the white substance puts on the form of a fine powder, which I find to be a hydrated oxide; for when dried at 180°F. it gives off water on being heated to redness, and dissolves without effervescence in weak nitric acid.—But if the surface of the water be exposed to the open air, the substance formed consists of minute brilliant pearly scales, which with the aid of a powerful microscope are seen to be thin equilateral triangular tables, often grouped into hexaedral tables, or worn at the edges into the form of rosettes. This substance, which has a pale grayish hue when dried, I have ascertained to be a carbonate of lead, consisting of two equivalents of neutral carbonate and one of hydrated protoxide.[2] The formation of carbonate takes place with considerable rapidity. In twelve ounces of distilled water, contained in a shallow glass basin loosely covered to exclude the dust, twelve brightly polished lead rods weighing 340 grains, will lose two grains and a half in eight days; and the lead will then show evident marks of corrosion. The process of corrosion goes on so long as atmospheric air is allowed to play freely on the surface of the water. In twenty months I have obtained 120 grains from an ounce of lead rods kept in 24 ounces of distilled water.
During these changes, a minute quantity of lead is dissolved. This is best proved by carefully filtering the water, then acidulating with a drop or two of nitric acid, and evaporating to dryness. I have never failed to detect lead in the residue by expelling the excess of nitric acid by heat, dissolving it in distilled water, and applying hydrosulphuric acid, hydriodate of potass, and chromate of potass to the solution. The lead is first dissolved in the form of hydrated oxide. For, if the air admitted to the water be deprived of carbonic acid, a clear liquid is obtained by filtration, and this is turned brown by hydrosulphuric acid. But a great part of the hydrate is speedily separated in the form of carbonate. For the filtered liquid speedily
