Carbonic Acid.—The materials used inf the production of carbonic acid, were carbonate of ammonia and concentrated sulphuric acid; the manipulation was like that described for sulphuretted hydrogen. Much stronger tubes are however required for carbonic acid than for any of the former substances, and there is none which has produced so many or more powerful explosions. Tubes which have held fluid carbonic acid well for two or three weeks together, have, upon some increase in the warmth of the weather, spontaneously exploded with great violence; and the precautions of glass masks, goggles, &c., which are at all times necessary in pursuing these experiments, are particularly so with carbonic acid.
Carbonic acid is a limpid colourless body, extremely fluid, and floating upon the other contents of the tube. It distils readily and rapidly at the difference of temperature between 32° and 0°. Its refractive power is much less than that of water. No diminution of temperature to which I have been able to submit it, has altered its appearance. In endeavouring to open the tubes at one end, they have uniformly burst into fragments, with powerful explosions. By enclosing a gauge in a tube in which fluid carbonic acid was afterwards produced, it was found that its vapour exerted a pressure of 36 atmospheres at a temperature of 32°.
It may be questioned, perhaps, whether this and other similar fluids obtained from materials containing water, do not contain a portion of that fluid; inasmuch as its absence has not been proved, as it may be with chlorine, sulphurous acid, cyanogen, and ammonia. But besides the analogy which exists between the latter and the former, it may also be observed in favour of their dryness, that any diminution of temperature causes the deposition of a fluid from the atmosphere, precisely like that previously obtained; and there is no reason for supposing that these various atmospheres, remaining as they do in contact with concentrated sulphuric acid, are not as dry as atmospheres of the same kind would be over sulphuric acid at common pressure.
Euchlorine.—Fluid euchlorine was obtained by enclosing chlorate of potash and sulphuric acid in a tube, and leaving them to act on each other for twenty-four hours. In that time there had been much action, the mixture was of a dark reddish
