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But what surprised me more than I can well express, was that a candle burned in this air with a remarkably vigorous flame, very much like that enlarged flame with which a candle burns in nitrous air, exposed to iron or lime of sulphur; but as I had got nothing like this remarkable appearance from any kind of air besides this particular modification of nitrous air, and I knew no nitrous acid was used in the preparation of mercurius calcinatus, I was utterly at a loss how to account for it.
But what surprised me more than I can express was that a candle burned in this air with a remarkably vigorous flame, very much like that enlarged flame with which a candle burns in nitrous oxide, exposed to iron or liver of sulphur; but as I had got nothing like this remarkable appearance from any kind of air besides this particular modification of vitrous air, and I knew no vitrous acid was used in the preparation of mercurius calcinatus, I was utterly at a loss to account for it."
But in pursuing his experiments on the evolution of air from various bodies by means of heat, it happened that, on the 1st of August 1774, he threw the heat of the sun, by means of a large burning glass which he had recently obtained, upon a substance which was then called mercurius calcinatus per se, and which is commonly known as red precipitate.
He says: "Having procured a lens of twelve inches diameter and twenty inches focal distance, I proceeded with great alacrity to examine, by the help of it, what kind of air a great variety of substances, natural and factitious, would yield.... With this apparatus, after a variety of other experiments.... on the 1st of August, 1774, I endeavoured to extract air from mercurius calcinatus per se; and I presently found that, by means of this lens, air was expelled from it very readily.
"Having procured a lens of twelve inches diameter and twenty inches local distance, I proceeded with the greatest alacrity, by the help of it, to discover what kind of air a great variety of substances would yield, putting them into the vessel, which I filled with quicksilver, and kept inverted in a basin of the same .... With this apparatus, after a variety of experiments.... on the 1st of August, 1774, I endeavored to extract air from mercurius calcinatus per se; and I presently found that, by means of this lens, air was expelled from it very readily.
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