possesses, of depriving such animals as breathe it of their lives.
I should anticipate subjects more properly reserved for the subsequent
chapters, were I in this place to enter upon the nomenclature of the
several species of gasses: It is sufficient, in this part of the work,
to establish the principles upon which their denominations are founded.
The principal merit of the nomenclature we have adopted is, that, when
once the simple elementary substance is distinguished by an appropriate
term, the names of all its compounds derive readily, and necessarily,
from this first denomination.
FOOTNOTES:
[10] In English, the word _steam_ is exclusively appropriated to water
in the state of vapour. E.
CHAP. V.
_Of the Decomposition of Oxygen Gas by Sulphur, Phosphorus, and
Charcoal--and of the Formation of Acids in general._
In performing experiments, it is a necessary principle, which ought
never to be deviated from, that they be simplified as much as possible,
and that every circumstance capable of rendering their results
complicated be carefully removed. Wherefore, in the experiments which
form the object of this chapter, we have never employed atmospheric air,
which is not a simple substance. It is true, that the azotic gas, which
forms a part of its mixture, appears to be merely passive during
combustion and calcination; but, besides that it retards these
operations very considerably, we are not certain but it may even alter
their results in some circumstances; for which reason, I have thought it
necessary to remove even this possible cause of doubt, by only making
use of pure oxygen gas in the following experiments, which show the
effects produced by combustion in that gas; and I shall advert to such
differences as take place in the results of these, when the oxygen gas,
or pure vital air, is mixed, in different proportions, with azotic gas.
58