Conversations on Chemistry, V. 1-2 / In Which the Elements of that Science Are Familiarly Explained and Illustrated by Experiments

by Mrs. Marcet

EMILY.

That I should think might be done by combining the oxygen and hydrogen together; for in combining they would give out their respective electricities in the form of caloric, and by this means would be condensed.

CAROLINE.

But you forget, Emily, that in order to make the oxygen and hydrogen combine, you must begin by elevating their temperature, which increases, instead of diminishing, their electric energies.

MRS. B.

Emily is, however, right; for though it is necessary to raise their temperature, in order to make them combine, as that combination affords them the means of parting with their electricities, it is eventually the cause of the diminution of electric energy.

CAROLINE.

You love to deal in paradoxes to-day, Mrs. B.—Fire, then, produces water?

MRS. B.

The combustion of hydrogen gas certainly does; but you do not seem to have remembered the theory of combustion so well as you thought you would. Can you tell me what happens in the combustion of hydrogen gas?