[196] For there is no reason to suppose the production of nitrogene.
[197] This capacity is most probably below the medium, my chest is narrow, measuring in circumference, but 29 inches, and my neck rather long and slender.
[198] Dr. Goodwyn in his excellent work on the connexion of life with respiration, has detailed some experiments on the capacity of the lungs after natural expiration. He makes the medium capacity about 109 cubic inches, which agrees very well with my estimation.—page 27.
[199] The oxygene as we have before noticed, most probably wholly existed in the residual gas.
[200] When they are agitated, a greater proportion of nitrous gas is absorbed, condensed in the nitric acid by the water; and to find the oxygene,
| (50 - m) | (50 - m) | |
| x = | ———— or | ———— |
| (3,4) | (3,5) |
[201] The diminution of air by single inspirations, was particularly noticed by Dr. Goodwyn.
[202] Dr. Priestley found that it likewise became florid at the surface when covered by milk; but that it underwent little or no alteration of color under water and most other fluids.—Vol. 3. p. 372.
[203] There are many analogous decompositions. Dr. Priestley noticed (and I have often made the observation) that green oxide of iron, or the precipitate from pale green sulphate of iron by caustic alkali, became red at the surface, when covered by a thick stratum of water. In my experiments on the green muriate and sulphate of iron, I observed that part of some dark oxide of iron which was at the bottom of a trough of water 9 inches deep, became red at the surface nearly in the same time as another portion of the same precipitation that was exposed to the atmosphere. This oxygenation must depend upon the decomposition of atmospheric air constantly dissolved by the water.
[204] Dr. Mitchill attempted to prove from some phænomena connected with contagious diseases, that dephlogisticated nitrous gas which he called oxide of septon, was the principle of contagion, and capable of producing the most terrible effects when respired by animals in the minutest quantities or even when applied to the skin or muscular fibre.