Some experiments on the combustion of the diamond and other carbonaceous substances

• Published in: Abstracts of the Papers Printed in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: The Royal Society 1832
• Subjects: Arago; Carbonic acid
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspl.1800.0312; https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rspl.1800.0312

Notwithstanding the many accurate experiments which have been made and recorded, showing that diamond and carbonaceous substances combine with the same quantity of oxygen, and form the same quantity of carbonic acid, various conjectures have been formed respecting some difference in their chemical composition, which might account for the remarkable difference in various sensible qualities. Messrs. Biot and Arago conjectured, from the great refractive power of the diamond, that hydrogen must be present. Guyton de Morveau imagined that other carbonaceous substances were oxides of diamond; and Sir Humphry Davy himself supposed, on the contrary, that diamond, as a non-conductor of electricity, probably contained oxygen, and afterwards that it contained some new principle of the same class with oxygen.