From the heating of native calcium sulphate and carbon is obtained calx sulphurata (U.S. and B.P.), or sulphurated lime, a greyish-white powder.
He also showed that on heating mercury calx alone an " air " was liberated which differed from other " airs," and was slightly heavier than ordinary air; moreover, the weight of the " air " set free from a given weight of the calx was equal to the weight taken up in forming the calx from mercury, and if the calx be heated with charcoal, the metal was recovered and a gas named " fixed air," the modern carbon dioxide, was formed.
It was mentioned by Libavius, who named it calx plumb dulcis.
Stahl, as late as 1702, quoted the formation of brass as a case of the union of a metal with an earth into a metallic compound; but he subsequently adopted the view propounded by Kunckel in 1677, that "cadmia" is a metallic calx, and that it dyes the copper yellow by giving its metal up to it.
The gas given off in the reduction of metallic calces by charcoal he at first supposed to be merely that contained in the calx, but he soon came to understand that it was a product formed by the union of the charcoal with the "dephlogisticated air" in the calx.