Phosphorus is eminently combustible; it melts and takes fire at the temperature of one hundred degrees, and absorbs in its combustion nearly once and a half its own weight of oxygen.
CAROLINE.
What! will a pound of phosphorus consume a pound and half of oxygen?
MRS. B.
So it appears from accurate experiments. I can show you with what violence it combines with oxygen, by burning some of it in that gas. We must manage the experiment in the same manner as we did the combustion of sulphur. You see I am obliged to cut this little bit of phosphorus under water, otherwise there would be danger of its taking fire by the heat of my fingers. I now put into the receiver, and kindle it by means of a hot wire.
EMILY.
What a blaze! I can hardly look at it. I never saw any thing so brilliant. Does it not hurt your eyes, Caroline?
CAROLINE.
Yes; but still I cannot help looking at it. A prodigious quantity of oxygen must indeed be absorbed, when so much light and caloric are disengaged!
MRS. B.