Page:Lavoisier-ElementsOfChemistry.pdf/166



The apparatus being disposed exactly as in the former experiment, with this difference, that instead of the 28 grs. of charcoal, the tube EF is filled with 274 grs. of soft iron in thin plates, rolled up spirally. The tube is made red hot by means of its furnace, and the water in the retort A is kept constantly boiling till it be all evaporated, and has passed through the tube EF, so as to be condensed in the bottle H.

No carbonic acid gas is disengaged in this experiment, instead of which we obtain 416 cubical inches, or 15 grs. of inflammable gas, thirteen times lighter than atmospheric air. By examining the water which has been distilled, it is found to have lost 100 grs. and the 274 grs. of iron confined in the tube are found have acquired 85 grs. additional weight, and its magnitude is considerably augmented. The iron is now hardly at all attractable by the magnet; it dissolves in acids without effervescence; and, in short, it is converted into a black oxyd, precisely similar to that which has been burnt in oxygen gas.

In this experiment we have a true oxydation of iron, by means of water, exactly similar to that produced in air by the assistance of heat. One hundred grains of water having been