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Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1840 edition. Excerpt: ... the atmosphere. One part mixed with two or three parts of air explodes violently by the action of an inflamed body, or an electrical spark. 3. Hydrogen gas, as has been stated, combines with oxygen gas, and to this circumstance its inflammation in the air is owing. If the two gases be pure, water is the only result, and the proportions are 2 of hydrogen to 15 of oxygen in weight, or 2 to 1 in volume. The union may be effected by the electric spark as described in page 73, over mercury, or the hydrogen may be introduced into a vessel full of oxygen through a narrow tube, by means of pressure, and inflamed by electricity, or the oxygen may be made to burn in the hydrogen in a similar manner. When a stream of oxygen is thrown into a stream of inflamed hydrogen, the heat produced is very intense, and far exceeds the highest heat of our furnaces, and may be used to fuse bodies, intractable by any other fire raised by combustion. The nature of water may be shewn synthetically as well as analytically. It is separated into 2 of hydrogen in volume and 1 of oxygen in the Voltaic circuit; the oxygen appears at the positive, the hydrogen at the negative metallic surfaces; and by means of platina wires, hermetically sealed into glass tubes, the products are collected. When 10 grains of the metal called potassium are added to about 2 grains of water in a glass tube, there is a violent action, much hydrogen is disengaged, and by heating the results, the operation is completed. The same effect is produced upon the potassium, as would be produced by heating it strongly in contact with a small quantity of oxygen; it becomes united to oxygen, and its increase of weight is in proportion to the weight of the hydrogen, as 15 to 2. It will be needless to dwell...
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