Classics of modern science : $b (Copernicus to Pasteur)
History
Classics of modern science : $b (Copernicus to Pasteur)
Science; Science -- History
I at first thought that muriatic acid and euchlorine had been formed;
then, that two new hydrates of chlorine had been produced; but at
last I suspected that the chlorine had been entirely separated from
the water by the heat and condensed into a dry fluid by the mere
pressure of its own abundant vapour. If that were true, it followed,
that chlorine gas, when compressed, should be condensed into the
same fluid, and, as the atmosphere in the tube in which the fluid
lay was not very yellow at 50° or 60°, it seemed probable that the
pressure required was not beyond what could readily be obtained by a
condensing syringe. A long tube was therefore furnished with a cap and
stop-cock, then exhausted of air and filled with chlorine, and being
held vertically with the syringe upwards, air was forced in, which
thrust the chlorine to the bottom of the tube, and gave a pressure of
about 4 atmospheres. Being now cooled, there was an immediate deposit
in films, which appeared to be hydrate, formed by water contained in
the gas and vessels, but some of the yellow fluid was also produced.
As this however might also contain a portion of the water present,
a perfectly dry tub and apparatus were taken, and the chlorine left
for some time over a bath of sulphuric acid before it was introduced.
Upon throwing in air and giving pressure, there was now no solid film
formed, but the clear yellow fluid was deposited, and more abundantly
still upon cooling. After remaining some time it disappeared, having
gradually mixed with the atmosphere above it, but every repetition of
the experiment produced the same results.
Presuming that I had now a right to consider the yellow fluid as pure
chlorine in the liquid state, I proceeded to examine its properties,
as well as I could when obtained by heat from the hydrate. However
obtained, it always appears very limpid and fluid, and excessively
volatile at common pressure. A portion was cooled in its tube to 0°;
it remained fluid. The tube was then opened, when a part immediately
flew off, leaving the rest so cooled by the evaporation as to remain a
fluid under the atmospheric pressure. The temperature could not have
been higher than 40° in this case; as Sir Humphrey Davy has shown
that dry chlorine does not condense at that temperature under common
pressure. Another tube was opened at a temperature of 50°; a part of
the chlorine volatilised, and cooled the tube so much as to condense
the atmospheric vapour on it as ice.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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