We have several tests for oxygen besides the mere burning of bodies. You
have seen a candle burnt in oxygen, or in the air; you have seen
phosphorus burnt in the air, or in oxygen; and you have seen iron-filings
burnt in oxygen. But we have other tests besides these, and I am about to
refer to one or two of them for the purpose of carrying your conviction
and your experience further. Here we have a vessel of oxygen. I will shew
its presence to you: if I take a little spark and put it into that oxygen,
you know, by the experience you gained the last time we met, what will
happen; if I put that spark into the jar, it will tell you whether we have
oxygen here or not. Yes! We have proved it by combustion; and now here is
another test for oxygen, which is a very curious and useful one. I have
here two jars full of gas, with a plate between them to prevent their
mixing; I take the plate away, and the gases are creeping one into the
other. What happens? say you: they together produce no such combustion
as was seen in the case of the candle. But see how the presence of oxygen
is told by its association with this other substance[14]. What a
beautifully coloured gas I have obtained in this way, shewing me the
presence of the oxygen! In the same way we can try this experiment by
mixing common air with this test-gas. Here is a jar containing air such
air as the candle would burn in and here is a jar or bottle containing
the test-gas. I let them come together over water, and you see the result:
the contents of the test-bottle are flowing into the jar of air, and you
see I obtain exactly the same kind of action as before, and that shews me
that there is oxygen in the air the very same substance that has been
already obtained by us from the water produced by the candle. But then,
beyond that, how is it that the candle does not burn in air as well as in
oxygen? We will come to that point at once. I have here two jars; they are
filled to the same height with gas, and the appearance to the eye is alike
in both, and I really do not know at present which of these jars contains
oxygen and which contains air, although I know they have previously been
filled with these gases. But here is our test-gas, and I am going to work
with the two jars, in order to examine whether there is any difference
between them in the quality of reddening this gas. I am now going to turn
this test-gas into one of the jars, and observe what happens. There is
reddening, you see; there is then oxygen present. We will now test the
other jar; but you see this is not so distinctly red as the first: and,
further, this curious thing happens, if I take these two gases and shake
them well together with water, we shall absorb the red gas; and then, if I
put in more of this test-gas and shake again, we shall absorb more; and I
can go on as long as there be any oxygen present to produce that effect.
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