United States or Montenegro ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
For the Parts being put into Motion by the adventitious Liquor, divers of them that were before United, may become thereby Disjoyn'd, and when that Motion ceases or decays others of them may stick together, and that in a new Order, by which means the Motion may sometimes produce Permanent changes of Colours, as in the Experiment you will meet with hereafter, of presently turning a Snowy White Body into a Yellow, by the bare Affusion of fair Water, which probably so Dissolves the Saline Corpuscles that remain'd in the Calx, and sets them at Liberty to Act upon one another, and the Metall, far more Powerfully than the Water without the Assistance of such Saline Corpuscles could do.
As he had obtained his dephlogisticated air by heating the calx of mercury, that is the powder produced by calcining mercury in the air, Priestley was forced to suppose that the calcination of mercury in the air must be a more complex occurrence than merely the expulsion of phlogiston from the mercury: for, if the process consisted only in the expulsion of phlogiston, how could heating what remained produce exceedingly pure ordinary air?
The upholders of the theory sometimes met the argument by saying, "Of course the calx weighs more than the metal, because phlogiston tends to lighten a body which contains it; and therefore the body weighs more after it has lost phlogiston than it did when the phlogiston formed part of it;" sometimes, and more often, their answer was "loss or gain of weight is an accident, the essential thing is change of qualities."
'Tis known among Chymists, that the white Calx of Antimony, by the further and more vehement operation of the fire, may be melted into Glass, which we have obtain'd of a Red Colour, which is far deeper than that of the Calx of Burnt Antimony, and though common Glafs of Antimony being usually Adulterated with Borax, have its Colour thereby diluted, oftentimes to a very pale Yellow; yet not onely ours made more sincerily, was, as we said, of a Colour less remote from Black, than was the Calx; but we observ'd, that by Melting it once or twice more, and so exposing it to the further operation of the Fire, we had, as we expected, the Colour heightned.
The phlogisteans taught that the earthy principle of a metal remains in the form of ash, cinders, or calx, when the metal is calcined, or, as they expressed it, when the metal is deprived of its phlogiston.
Lead, or any other metal except gold or silver, is calcined in the air; the metal loses its characteristic properties, and is changed into a powdery substance, a kind of cinder or calx. When this cinder, which was said to be the result of the death of the metal, is heated in a crucible with some grains of wheat, one sees the metal revive, and resume its original form and properties. Conclusion.
It must be recollected that Linnaeus included silex, as well as limestone, under the name of "calx," and that he would probably have arranged Diatoms among animals, as part of "chaos." Ehrenberg quotes another even more pithy passage, which I have not been able to find in any edition of the Systema accessible to me: "Sic lapides ab animalibus, nec vice versa.
The Experiment was this. Beguinus, Tyr. Chy. Lib. 2º. Cap. 13º. We took good common Vitriol, and having beaten it to Powder, and put it into a Crucible, we kept it melted in a gentle heat, till by the Evaporation of some parts, and the shuffling of the rest, it had quite lost its former Colour, what remain'd we took out, and found it to be a friable Calx, of a dirty Gray.
And I remember that the other day, I made my self some Sport by an Improvement of this Observation, for having dissolv'd some Pure Silver in Aqua Fortis, and Evaporated the Menstruum ad siccitatem, as they speak, I caus'd a Quantity of fair Water to be pour'd upon the Calx two or three several times, and to be at each Evaporated, till the Calx was very Drye, and all the Greenish Blewness that is wont to appear in Common Crystals of Silver, was quite carry'd away.
The theory thought of the re-formation of a metal from its calx, that is, the earthy substance which remains after combustion, as the combination of two things to produce one, apparently homogeneous, substance. Metals appeared to the phlogisteans, as they appeared to the alchemists, to be composite substances.
Word Of The Day