A System of Chemistry Author:John Murray Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: vessels, and to serve for the formation of their products. Hence was suggested an admirable view of the mutual adaptation of the animal and vegetable kingdoms; t... more »he individuals belonging to the one, consuming oxygen and expiring carbonic acid ; those of the other absorbing carbonic acid, and restoring oxygen to the atmosphere. Such a view is conformable to the general economy of nature, but there is much reason to doubt if the supposed facts on which it rests are sufficiently established. The subject is involved in obscurity, and it is not improbable that there are other natural processes by which the balance is adjusted, and the constitution of the atmosphere so uniformly preserved. If the relation, which late discoveries point' out, between oxygen, nitrogen, and water, be established, this will probably be illustrated. Chap. iv. - OF THE CHEMICAL AGENCY OF OXYGEN IN ITS PUUK FORM, AND A3 IT EXISTS IN ATMOS- 1'HEUIC AIR. 1 HE general chemical agency of oxygen, it has been remarked, is more important than that of any other principle ; its affinities being more extensive, and apparently more energetic. These affinities, and the actions which result from them, are exerted by it not only in its pure form, but likewise as it exists in atmospheric air, and this with nearly the same force, and with similar results. It " is even more generally as a constituent part of atmospheric air that it operates as a chemical agent. I have therefore reserved the general view of its chemical action until the constitution of atmospheric air has been explained. This view I have now to deliver. The combination of oxygen with other bodies is often attended with the extrication of light, and the production of heat, giving rise to the phenomena of combustion. The illustration, therefore, o...« less