History of Air-Analysis 



27 



On a trip to South America in 1825, Boussingault 1 made observations 

 on the oxygen content of the air at various altitudes. In at least one 

 analysis he used platinum sponge, for he reports that air taken in Novem- 

 ber, 1826, at Mariquita, in the valley of the Magdalena, at an altitude of 

 548 meters, gave with platinum sponge 20.77 per cent of oxygen. 



Two analyses made with the Volta eudiometer gave results as follows : 



December 1826, Ibague" (1323 meters) 20.7 per cent. 



April 1825, Santa F6 de Bogota (2643 meters) 20.65 per cent. 



Boussingault concluded that his observations were not in accord with 

 the Dalton hypothesis. 



Turner, 2 in a paper read before the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 1824, 

 reported his experiences with the use of spongy platinum on a mixture 

 of air and hydrogen. Three experiments gave 21.8, 22.3, and 21.7 per 

 cent of oxygen, respectively. Suspecting the purity of his hydrogen, he 

 left an active ball of spongy platinum in contact with hydrogen over 

 night and made 6 tests the next day. The results were 20.3, 20.3, 20.7, 

 21, 21.3, and 21.7 per cent of oxygen, respectively, the mean of these ex- 

 periments being 20.88 per cent; he assumes 21 per cent of oxygen as the 

 correct value. 



Table 5. Percentages of oxygen obtained by Baumgartner in atmospheric air. 



Degen 3 in Stuttgart likewise used platinum sponge and found in out- 

 door air 20.80, 20.88, and 20.89 per cent. 



Kupffer 4 in Kasan, by using a Volta eudiometer and mixing 99 parts 

 of hydrogen with 198 parts of air, found after explosion a residue of 171 to 

 172 parts, corresponding to 21 to 21.2 per cent of oxygen. 



The appearance of cholera in Vienna in 1831 led to an exhaustive 

 study of the atmosphere by Baumgartner, 5 who analyzed the air each day 

 from September 24, 1831, to January 31, 1832, by means of the Volta 

 eudiometer. Differences between analyses on the same sample seldom 

 varied 0.2 per cent. 



1 Boussingault, Annales de Chimie et de Physique, 1841, 3rd ser., I, p. 354. 

 1 Turner, abstracted in Boston Journal of Philosophy, 1825, 2, p. 238. 

 8 Degen, Poggendorff ' s Annalen der Physik and Chemie, 1833, 27, p. 557. 

 * Kupffer, Annales de Chimie et de Physique, 1829, 41, p. 423. 



5 Baumgartner, Medicinische Jahrbucher des k. k. osterreichischen Staates, 1832, 

 12, p. 83. 



