Oxygen
An elementary gas, colorless, tasteless, odorless, and incombustible, having a specific gravity of about 1.057. Oxygen enters largely into the composition of all nature; being a constituent part of the atmosphere (see No. 4072), upon which it confers the power of supporting life and combustion; and water, present more or less through the whole world, contains about 88 per cent. by weight, or 33 per cent. by volume, of oxygen; place; but, in this case, the quinidine will it constitutes also a portion of the majority shortly begin to crystallize in a layer of ether. of the mineral bodies that form the bulk of If more than 10 per cent. of quinidine be our globe. It is a powerful supporter of compresent, there will be found an insoluble precipitate between the strata of the fluid. If this be quinidine, it will be dissolved by the addition of ether, while cinchonine (see No. 4002) will be unaffected.
G as. A general term applied to all aëriform or permanently elastic fluids, excepting the compound of oxygen and nitrogen constituting the atmosphere, which is bustion, and its presence is essential to the existence of animal and vegetable life. Oxygen unites with certain other bodies in fixed proportions to form a class of acids distinguished as oxygen acids or oxacids. (See No. 3853.)