EMILY.
I wonder that metals can unite with oxygen; for, as they are so dense, their attraction of aggregation must be very great; and I should have thought that oxygen could never have penetrated such bodies.
MRS. B.
Their strong attraction for oxygen counterbalances this obstacle. Most metals, however, require to be made red-hot before they are capable of attracting oxygen in any considerable quantity. By this combination they lose most of their metallic properties, and fall into a kind of powder, formerly called calx, but now much more properly termed an oxyd; thus we have oxyd of lead, oxyd of iron, &c.
EMILY.
And in the Voltaic battery, it is, I suppose, an oxyd of zinc, that is formed by the union of the oxygen with that metal?
MRS. B.
Yes, it is.
CAROLINE.
The word oxyd, then, simply means a metal combined with oxygen?