of explaining the cause of the mischief which is known to arise
from fresh _paint_, made with white-lead (which I suppose is an
imperfect calx of lead) and oil.

To verify my hypothesis, I first put a small pot full of this kind of
paint, and afterwards (which answered much better, by exposing a greater
surface of the paint) I daubed several pieces of paper with it, and put
them under a receiver, and observed, that in about twenty-four hours,
the air was diminished between one fifth and one fourth, for I did not
measure it very exactly. This air also was, as I expected to find, in
the highest degree noxious; it did not effervesce with nitrous air, it
was no farther diminished by a mixture of iron filings and brimstone,
and was made wholesome by agitation in water deprived of all air.

I think it appears pretty evident, from the preceding experiments on the
calcination of metals that air is, some way or other, diminished in
consequence of being highly charged with phlogiston; and that agitation
in water restores it, by imbibing a great part of the phlogistic
matter.

That water has a considerable affinity with phlogiston, is evident from
the strong impregnation which it receives from it. May not plants also
restore air diminished by putrefaction by absorbing part of the
phlogiston with which it is loaded? The greater part of a dry plant, as
well as of a dry animal substance, consists of inflammable air, or
something that is capable of being converted into inflammable air; and
it seems to be as probable that this phlogistic matter may have been
imbibed by the roots and leaves of plants, and afterwards incorporated
into their substance, as that it is altogether produced by the power of
vegetation. May not this phlogistic matter be even the most essential
part of the food and support of both vegetable and animal bodies?

In the experiments with metals, the diminution of air seems to be the
consequence of nothing but a saturation with phlogiston; and in all the
other cases of the diminution of air, I do not see but that it may be
effected by the same means. When a vegetable or animal substance is
dissolved by putrefaction, the escape of the phlogistic matter (which,
together with all its other constituent parts, is then let loose from
it) may be the circumstance that produces the diminution of the air in
which it putrefies. It is highly improbable that what remains after an
animal body has been thoroughly dissolved by pu