本篇文章共分 5 段，從 17 世紀化學家對於空氣的忽視態度，到 18 世紀中葉由於集氣槽的發明而使化學家態度發生轉變的過程，說明早期化學界對於空氣的認知與研究的進步過程。

本篇考題英文原文與對應之中文翻譯整理如下。練習作答解題時若有對語意不清楚之處，請仔細查閱對照，以提升閱讀理解能力。

Early Research on Air 關於空氣的早期研究

1. 十七世紀化學家對空氣的看法

   In the field of chemistry, the understanding of the word “air" has undergone radical change. Air for John Mayow, a seventeenth-century chemist, was essentially a receptacle for airborne particles, and through them manifested a variety of chemical properties. But although Mayow and a few other chemists did detect specific chemical properties in what we call gases (including our carbon dioxide), most chemists left them unaccounted for until the beginning of the eighteenth century. As chemists became aware that the atmosphere itself (and not just particles within it) had a role to play in combustion, respiration, and other reactions, they did not attribute this to the chemical properties of air but rather to substances that air could absorb and release according to circumstances. Thus, air provided a physical environment in which some reactions took place.

   在化學領域，對「空氣」一詞的理解已經發生了根本性的變化。對於 17 世紀的化學家約翰．馬約來說，空氣基本上是空中飄浮顆粒的容器，並通過它們表現出各種化學特性。但是，儘管馬約和其他一些化學家確實在我們所說的氣體（包括我們的二氧化碳）中檢測到了特定的化學特性，但大多數化學家直到十八世紀初才對它們進行說明。當化學家意識到大氣層本身（而不僅僅是其中的顆粒）在燃燒、呼吸和其他反應中的作用時，他們並沒有將其歸結為空氣的化學特性，而是歸結為空氣可以根據情況吸收和釋放的物質。因此，空氣提供了一個物理環境，一些反應就在其中發生。

2. 化學家對忽視空氣的作用

   In the early 1700s, the air was widely seen as just such an environment, and “air” and “the air” were one and the same thing. Chemists were not in the habit of regarding airs or gases as having different chemical properties. There was simply air. One obvious reason for this was practical chemists could examine solids and liquids, exposing them to a variety of tests and seeing how they contributed to assorted reactions. Chemists had, however, no comparable way of examining air; and they came to view chemistry as the sum total of the reactions of solids and liquids, excluding gases. Chemists stressed chemical qualities over physical properties like weight and let physicists deal with air. Chemists generally did not examine air, and they did not try to weigh it. That does not mean that chemists did not weigh substances. They did a lot of weighing, and pharmacists and metallurgists did more. But weighing gases was outside their brief. In the Encyclopedia of Diderot and d'Alembert, published between 1751 and 1775, readers were told that “the incoercibility of gases will remove them from our researches for a long time to come.”

   在 17 世紀初，人們普遍認為空氣就是這樣一種環境，而且「空氣」和「空中」是同一回事。化學家們沒有把空氣或氣體視為具有不同化學性質的習慣。空氣就是空氣。其中一個明顯的原因是，實用的化學家可以檢查固體和液體，將它們暴露在各種測試中，並看到它們如何促進各種反應。然而，化學家們沒有類似的方法來檢驗空氣；他們開始將化學視為固體和液體反應的總和，不包括氣體。化學家強調化學性質而非像重量這樣的物理性質，並且讓物理學家來處理空氣。化學家們一般不研究空氣，也不試圖去稱量它。這並不意味著化學家不對物質進行稱重。他們做了大量的稱重工作，藥劑師和冶金學家做的更多。但稱量氣體不在他們的職權範圍內。在 1751 年至 1775 年間出版的狄德羅和達朗貝爾的《百科全書》中，讀者被告知，「氣體的不可壓縮性將使它們在未來很長一段時間內脫離我們的研究。」

3. 集氣槽的發明

   By the time of the Encyclopedia, however, this had begun to change. One of the first and key sources of change was the invention by the Reverend Stephen Hales of a new instrument, the pneumatic trough. This instrument is important for what it made possible in the handling of air. The history of its invention and early use illustrates the difference there may be between the motives for inventing a device and the ways in which that device is used.

   然而，到了《百科全書》的時候，這種情況已經開始發生變化。第一個和關鍵的變化來源是斯蒂芬．黑爾斯牧師發明了一種新的儀器，即集氣槽。這種儀器的重要性在於它使空氣的處理成為可行。它的發明和早期使用的歷史說明了發明一個設備的動機和使用該設備的方式之間可能存在的差異。

4. 集氣槽的構造

   Hales was a botanist and chemist as well as a physiologist. He wrote a book in 1727 investigating mechanical subjects like the pressure of sap in plants. But Hales went further, addressing chemical as well as physiological questions. He urged chemists to consider air chemically. He described an instrument for washing the air produced in the course of a chemical reaction. He wanted to get rid of impurities in the air by letting it pass through water. Air passed from a reaction vessel through water in a trough (or tube) and then into a second vessel that was partly filled with water and that could capture air.

   黑爾斯是一位植物學家和化學家，也是一位生理學家。他在 1727 年寫了一本書，研究植物中樹液的壓力等機械課題。但黑爾斯更進一步，解決了化學和生理學問題。他敦促化學家從化學角度考慮空氣。他描述了一種用於清洗化學反應過程中產生的空氣的儀器。他想透過讓空氣通過水來除去空氣中的雜質。空氣從一個反應容器中通過一個槽（或管）中的水，然後進入第二個部分充滿水並能捕獲空氣的容器。

5. 集氣槽對空氣研究的貢獻

   In devising this apparatus, Hales had coincidentally furnished an instrument for catching and holding air, which could then be subjected to various tests. Used in this way the apparatus became known as the pneumatic trough half a century after its invention, it became a staple of the chemical laboratory. It also became one of the key instruments in the reform of chemistry that we know as the chemical revolution because it was essential to incorporating a whole new state of matter, the gaseous state, into chemistry, alongside the already studied solid and liquid states. Once that step had been taken, it was possible to speculate and then to demonstrate that the gaseous state, like the solid and liquid states, could contain a variety of chemical substances. This was an enormous step, and it did not happen overnight. Hales had shown that air could be contained, washed, and purified, and tested chemically as well as physically. This, however, did not lead him to think that there was more than one kind of air. Air for him remained air, not one of a number of airs. Other chemists would take that essential step.

   在設計這個儀器時，黑爾斯恰好提供了一個捕捉和保持空氣的儀器，然後可以對其進行各種測試。以這種方式使用的儀器在發明半個世紀後被稱為集氣槽，它成為化學實驗室的主要工具。它也成為化學改革的關鍵工具之一，我們稱之為化學革命，因為它對於將一種全新的物質狀態，即氣態，與已經研究過的固態和液態一起納入化學來說是至關重要的。一旦邁出了這一步，就有可能推測並證明氣態與固態和液態一樣，可以包含各種化學物質。這是一個巨大的進步，而且不是一夜之間就能實現的。黑爾斯證明了空氣可以被容納、洗滌和淨化，並在化學和物理上進行測試。然而，這並沒有使他認為有不止一種空氣。對他來說，空氣仍然是空氣，而不是若干種空氣中的一種。其他化學家則將踏出此一重要步驟。