"From the analysis or decomposition of sulphur effected by burning, we have concluded that the constituent parts of sulphur are two—an acid which may be collected, and an inflammable principle which is dispersed. If the reader has yet acquired any real taste for chemical truths, he will wish to see this analysis confirmed by synthesis; that is, in common language, he will wish to see sulphur actually made by combining its acid with an inflammable principle. It seldom happens that chemists can reproduce the original bodies, though they combine together all the principles into which they have analyzed them; in the instance, however, before us, the reproduction of the original substance will be found complete.
"As the inflammable principle cannot be obtained in a palpable form separate from all other bodies, the only method by which we can attempt to unite it with the acid of sulphur must be by presenting to that acid some substance in which it is contained. Charcoal is such a substance; and by distilling powdered charcoal and the acid of sulphur together, we can procure a true yellow sulphur, in no wise to be distinguished from common sulphur. This sulphur is formed from the union of the acid with the phlogiston of the charcoal; and the charcoal may by this means be so entirely robbed of its phlogiston that it will be reduced to ashes, as if it had been burned. . . .
"I will in this place, by way of further illustration of the term phlogiston, add a word or two concerning the necessity of its union with a metallic earth, in order to constitute a metal. Lead, it has been observed, when melted in a strong fire, burns away like rotten wood; all its properties as a metal are destroyed, and it is reduced to ashes. If you expose the ashes of lead to a strong fire they will melt; but the melted substance will not be a metal, it will be a yellow or orange-colored glass. If you pound the glass, and mix it with charcoal-dust, or if you mix the ashes of the lead with charcoal-dust, and expose either mixture to a melting heat, you will obtain, not a glass, but a metal, in weight, color, consistency, and every other property, the same as lead. The ashes of lead melted without charcoal become glass; the ashes of lead melted with charcoal become a metal. The charcoal, then, must have communicated something to the ashes of lead, by which they are changed from a glass to a metal. Charcoal consists of but two things—of ashes and of phlogiston; the ashes of charcoal, though united with the ashes of lead, would only produce glass; it must, therefore, be the other constituent part of charcoal or phlogiston which is communicated to the ashes of lead, and by a union with which the ashes are restored to their metallic form. The ashes of lead can never be restored to their metallic form without their being united with some matter containing phlogiston, and they may be reduced in their metallic form by being united with any substance containing phlogiston in a proper state, whether that substance be derived from the animal, vegetable, or mineral kingdom; and thence we conclude, not only that phlogiston is a necessary part of a metal, but that phlogiston has an identity belonging to it, from whatever substance in Nature it be extracted. And this assertion still becomes more general, if we may believe that metallic ashes have been reduced to their metallic form, both by the solar rays and the electrical fire."
The foregoing account by Dr. Watson is almost a translation from Stahl's "Zymotechnica Fundamentalis, simulque experimentum no-
