weakly inflammable.

Putting several pieces of _sulphur_ to this air, it was absorbed but
slowly. In about twenty-four hours about one fifth of the quantity had
disappeared; and water being admitted to the remainder, very little more
was absorbed. The remainder was inflammable, and burned with a blue
flame.

Notwithstanding the affinity which this acid air appears to have with
phlogiston, it is not capable of depriving all bodies of it. I found
that dry wood, crusts of bread, and raw flesh, very readily imbibed this
air, but did not part with any of their phlogiston to it. All these
substances turned very brown, after they had been some time exposed to
this air, and tasted very strongly of the acid when they were taken out;
but the flesh, when washed in water, became very white, and the fibres
easily separated from one another, even more than they would have done
if it had been boiled or roasted[9].

When I put a piece of _saltpetre_ to this air it was presently
surrounded with a white fume, which soon filled the whole vessel,
exactly like the fume which bursts from the bubbles of nitrous air, when
it is generated by a vigorous fermentation, and such as is seen when
nitrous air is mixed with this acid air. In about a minute, the whole
quantity of air was absorbed, except a very little, which might be the
common air that had lodged upon the surface of the spirit of salt within
the phial.

A piece of _alum_ exposed to this air turned yellow, absorbed it as fast
as the saltpetre had done, and was reduced by it to the form of a
powder. Common salt, as might be expected, had no effect whatever on
this marine acid air.

I had also imagined, that if air diminished by the processes
above-mentioned was affected in this manner, in consequence of its being
saturated with phlogiston, a mixture of this acid air might imbibe that
phlogiston, and render it wholesome again; but I put about one fourth of
this air to a quantity of air in which metals had been calcined, without
making any sensible alteration in it. I do not, however, infer from
this, that air is not diminished by means of phlogiston, since the
common air, like some other substances, may hold the phlogiston too
fast, to be deprived of it by this acid air.

I shall conclude my account of these experiments with observing, that
the electric spark is visible in acid air, exactly as it is in common
air; and though I kept making this spark a considerable time in a
quant