Having, at one time, fully saturated a quantity of ether with acid air, I admitted bubbles of common air to it, through the quicksilver, by which it was confined, and observed that white fumes were made in it, at the entrance of every bubble, for a considerable time.
At another time, having fully saturated a small quantity of ether with acid air, and having left the phial in which it was contained nearly full of the air, and inverted, it was by some accident overturned; when, instantly, the whole room was filled with a visible fume, like a white cloud, which had very much the smell of ether, but peculiarly offensive. Opening the door and window of the room, this light cloud filled a long passage, and another room. In the mean time the ether was seemingly all vanished, but some time after the surface of the quicksilver in which the experiment had been made was covered with a liquor that tasted very acid; arising, probably, from the moisture in the atmosphere attracted by the acid vapour with which the ether had been impregnated.
This visible cloud I attribute to the union of the moisture in the atmosphere with the compound of the acid air and ether. I have since saturated other quantities of ether with acid air, and found it to be exceedingly volatile, and inflammable. Its exhalation was also visible, but not in so great a degree as in the case above mentioned.
Camphor was presently reduced into a fluid state by imbibing acid air, but there seemed to be something of a whitish sediment in it. After continuing two days in this situation I admitted water to it; immediately upon which the camphor resumed its former solid state, and, to appearance, was the very same substance that it had been before; but the taste of it was acid, and a very small part of the air was permanent, and slightly inflammable.
The acid air seemed to make no impression upon a piece of Derbyshire spar, of a very dark colour, and which, therefore, seemed to contain a good deal of phlogiston.
As the acid air has so near an affinity with phlogiston, I expected that the fumes of liver of sulphur, which chemists agree to be phlogistic, would have united with it, so as to form inflammable air; but I was disappointed in that expectation. This substance imbibed half of the acid air to which it was introduced: one fourth of the remainder, after standing one day in quicksilver, was imbibed by water, and what was left extinguished a candle. This experiment, however, seems to prove that acid air and phlogiston may form a permanent kind of air that is not inflammable. Perhaps it may be air in such a state as common air loaded with phlogiston, and from which the fixed air has been precipitated. Or rather, it may be the same thing with inflammable air, that has lost its inflammability by long standing in water. It well deserves a farther examination.
The following experiments are those in which the stronger acids were made use of, and therefore they may assist us farther to ascertain their affinities with certain substances, with respect to this marine acid in the form of air.
I put a quantity of strong concentrated oil of vitriol to acid air, but it was not at all affected by it in a day and a night. In order to try whether it would not have more power in a more condensed state, I compressed it with an additional atmosphere; but upon taking off this pressure, the air expanded again, and appeared to be not at all diminished. I also put a quantity of strong spirit of nitre to it without any sensible effect. We may conclude, therefore, that the marine acid, in this form of air, is not able to dislodge the other acids from their union with water.
Blue vitriol, which is formed by the union of the vitriolic acid with copper, turned to a dark green the moment that it was put to the acid air, which it absorbed, though slowly. Two pieces, as big as small nuts, absorbed three ounce measures of the air in about half an hour. The green colour was very superficial; for it was easily wiped or washed off.
Green copperas turned to a deeper green upon being put into acid air, which it absorbed slowly. White copperas absorbed this air very fast, and was dissolved in it.