An essay on combustion, with a view to a new art of dying and painting : wherein the phlogistic and antiphlogistic hypotheses are proved erroneous / by Mrs. Fulhame.

  • Fulhame, Mrs. (Elizabeth), active 1780-1810.
Date:
1810
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An essay on combustion, with a view to a new art of dying and painting : wherein the phlogistic and antiphlogistic hypotheses are proved erroneous / by Mrs. Fulhame. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    able System of Chemistry,* when speaking of the reduction of the muriate of gold, whilst liquid, by some of the combustibles, but which decompos:tion does not happen when dry; he adds for these very interesting facts we are indebted to the ingenious Mrs. Fulhame: he then proceeds to mention some of her experiments, and continues Mrs. Fulhame as- certained, that this reduction of the gold does not happen in any case unless the salt be moistened with water : when perfectly dry, it is not altered. This is not peculiar to the action of combustibles on metallic salts: it holds also, as we shall see afterwards, with respect to the metals. But it is by no means easy to see what'makes water so indispensably necessary. It is not, as is commonly suppesed, in order to secure the fluidity of the mixture: for Mrs. Fulhame has shewn that ether, though a liquid, has no effect in reducing gold unless water be present. She accounts very ingeniously for the phenomena, by supposing that the water is decomposed. The combustible combines with its oxygen, while its hydrogen com- bines with the oxygen of the gold, and reproduces water. This theory accounts very well for the phe- nomena ; but it would require some direct proof to establish it completely. The concession admitted in the last sentence, from so celebrated a chemist as Dr. Thompson undoubted- * Vol. III. p. 127, i3«. A2