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

by Mrs. Marcet

I thought that carbon, hydrogen, and caloric, formed carbonated hydrogen gas?

MRS. B.

That is the case when a small portion of carbonic acid gas is held in solution by hydrogen gas. Different proportions of the same principles, together with the circumstances of their union, produce very different combinations; of this you will see innumerable examples. Besides, we are not now talking of gases, but of carbon and hydrogen, combined only with a quantity of caloric sufficient to bring them to the consistency of oil or fat.

CAROLINE.

But oil and fat are not of the same consistence?

MRS. B.

Fat is only congealed oil; or oil, melted fat. The one requires a little more heat to maintain it in a fluid state than the other. Have you never observed the fat of meat turned to oil by the caloric it has imbibed from the fire?

EMILY.

Yet oils in general, as salad-oil, and lamp-oil, do not turn to fat when cold?

MRS. B.