Page:The chemical history of a candle.djvu/110

108 form of apparatus, for the purpose of pointing out to you what are the particular circumstances of this experiment. In place of an open vessel I have taken one that is closed (our battery is so beautifully active that we are even boiling the mercury, and getting all things right—not wrong, but vigorously right); and I am going to shew you that that gas, whatever it may be, can burn without air, and in that respect differs from a candle, which cannot burn without the air. And our manner of doing this is as follows:— I have here a glass vessel (G) which is fitted with two platinum-wires (I K), through which I can apply electricity; and we can put the vessel on the air-pump and exhaust the air, and when we have taken the air out we can bring it here and fasten it on to this jar (F), and let into the vessel that gas which was formed by the action of the voltaic battery upon the water, and which we have produced by changing the water into it,— for I may go as far as this, and say we have really, by that experiment, changed the water into that gas. We have not only altered its condition, but we have changed it really and truly into