XVIII. Experiments on carbonated hydrogenous gas; with a view to determine whether carbon be a simple or a compound substance

Abstract

The progress of chemical science depends not only on the acquisition of new facts, but on the accurate establishment, and just valuation, of those we already possess: for its general principles will otherwise be liable to frequent subversions; and the mutability of its doctrines will but ill accord with the unvaried order of nature. Impressed with this conviction, I have been induced to examine a late attempt to withdraw from its rank among the elementary bodies, one of the most interesting objects of chemistry. The inferences respecting the composition of charcoal, deduced by Dr. Austin from his experiments on the heavy inflammable air,* lead to changes so numerous in our explanations of natural phænomena, that they ought not to be admitted without the strictest scrutiny of the reasoning of this philosopher, and an attentive repetition of the experiments themselves. In the former, sources of fallacy may, I think, be easily detected; and in the latter, there is reason to suspect that Dr. Austin has been misled by inattention to some collateral circumstances. Several chemists, however, of distinguished rank have expressed themselves satisfied with the evidence thus produced in favour of the composition of charcoal; and amongst these it may be sufficient to mention Dr. Beddoes, who has availed himself of the theory of Dr. Austin, in explaining some appearances that attend the conversion of cast into malleable iron.* The heavy inflammable air, having been proved to consist of a solution of pure charcoal in light inflammable air, is termed, in the new nomenclature, carbonated hydrogenous gas. By repeatedly passing the electric shock through a small quantity of this gas, confined in a bent tube over mercury, Dr. Austin found that it was permanently dilated to more than twice its original volume. An expansion so remarkable could not, as he observes, be occasioned by any other known cause than the evolution of light inflammable air.