Why Do Things Burn?

The temperature of our bodies appears from the foodstuff we eat; the heat for food preparation and for warming our houses appears from coal. The creation of heat in the course of the burning of coal, or gas, or wood, is called combustion. Combustion cannot arise devoid of the existence of a material called oxygen, which survives slightly in abundance in the air; that is, one fifth of our air consists of this material which we call oxygen. We fling untie our windows to permit clean air to enter, and we get walks in organize to respire the clean air into our lungs. What we require for the power and warmness of our bodies is the oxygen in the atmosphere.

Whether we burn up gas or coal, the temperature which is formed comes from the influence which these different substances have to unite by oxygen. We unlock the breeze of a range that it can "illustrate fine": that it can protect oxygen for aflame. We throw a coverlet over burning stuff to suffocate the fire: to remain oxygen missing from it. Smoldering, or corrosion, is uniting with oxygen, and the extra oxygen you put in to a fire, the blazing the fire will burn, and the quicker.