loud I attribute to the union of the moisture in the
atmosphere with the compound of the acid air and ether. I have since
saturated other quantities of ether with acid air, and found it to be
exceedingly volatile, and inflammable. Its exhalation was also visible,
but not in so great a degree as in the case above mentioned.

_Camphor_ was presently reduced into a fluid state by imbibing acid air,
but there seemed to be something of a whitish sediment in it. After
continuing two days in this situation I admitted water to it;
immediately upon which the camphor resumed its former solid state, and,
to appearance, was the very same substance that it had been before; but
the taste of it was acid, and a very small part of the air was
permanent, and slightly inflammable.

The acid air seemed to make no impression upon a piece of Derbyshire
_spar_, of a very dark colour, and which, therefore, seemed to contain a
good deal of phlogiston.

As the acid air has so near an affinity with phlogiston, I expected that
the fumes of _liver of sulphur_, which chemists agree to be phlogistic,
would have united with it, so as to form inflammable air; but I was
disappointed in that expectation. This substance imbibed half of the
acid air to which it was introduced: one fourth of the remainder, after
standing one day in quicksilver, was imbibed by water, and what was left
extinguished a candle. This experiment, however, seems to prove that
acid air and phlogiston may form a permanent kind of air that is not
inflammable. Perhaps it may be air in such a state as common air loaded
with phlogiston, and from which the fixed air has been precipitated. Or
rather, it may be the same thing with inflammable air, that has lost its
inflammability by long standing in water. It well deserves a farther
examination.

The following experiments are those in which the _stronger acids_ were
made use of, and therefore they may assist us farther to ascertain their
affinities with certain substances, with respect to this marine acid in
the form of air.

I put a quantity of strong concentrated _oil of vitriol_ to acid air,
but it was not at all affected by it in a day and a night. In order to
try whether it would not have more power in a more condensed state, I
compressed it with an additional atmosphere; but upon taking off this
pressure, the air expanded again, and appeared to be not at all
diminished. I also put a quantity of strong _spirit of nitre_ to it
wit