7Q Scientific Notices — Chenmtrif* [JuLTi 



more volatile ingredient to pass into vapour may be checked ii^ 

 a considerable degree by its connexion with the other liquid. 

 That many reputed gases, at a low temperature, or under 



freat pressure, assume the liquid form, has been demonstrated 

 y Mr. Faraday.* The researches of that ingenious chemist on 

 gaseous liquefaction, strongly impress the doctrine, that in the 

 physical states of gas, liquid and solid, there is nothing of abso- 

 lute permanency, and that any body may assume consecutively 

 all these forms. Hence it follows that those bodies, which at 

 the temperature of the atmosphere, we experience to be gases, 

 may be considered without impropriety as volatilized liquids ; 

 and we may predicate of such bodies, the common properties of 

 liquids. Of these properties, two have been mentioned, which 

 alone will be applied to the elucidation of the phenomena of 

 absorption. 



It IS then assumed that the gases if liquefied (by pressure or 

 any other means), would in general mix in some proportion or 

 other, with such ordinary and reputed liquids as we had it in our 

 power to present to them ; and that they would be retained in 

 part by these liquids, through the agency of the mutual attrac- 

 tion evinced in liquid mixture, even although the pressure under 

 which the union took place were considerably reduced, and the 

 temperature raised. In this way there might result a mixture of 

 a liquefied gas and a common liquid in reduced proportions, at 

 the ordinary atmospheric pressure and temperature. 



But it is not necessary to suppose that the gaseous bodies, 

 whose absorption by liquids it is attempted to explain, be pre- 

 sented in a liquefied state. Analogy will lead us to expect that 

 the mere injection into our absorbing liquids, of such gases in 

 their elastic state, will occasion their liquefaction, and conse- 

 quently bring into play the affinities of liquids, and the conco- 

 mitant diminution of volatility, on which the explanation is 

 founded. 



Thus : sulphuric acid, concentrated as much as it can be, boils 

 at about 620 . Let a quantity of sulphuric acid so concentrated 

 be heated to 600°, and kept at that temperature, and let the 

 steam of water previously raised to the same temperature, be 

 conducted into it. We would predict, without the least hesita- 

 tion, as the result, the detention and absorption of the steam, 

 notwithstanding its high elasticity, until the boiling point of the 

 acid was reduced by the dilution to 600°. Here then we have 

 an instance of the absorption of a gaseous body (steam at 600°), 

 by a liquid at the same temperature ; yet in orier to liquefy the 

 gaseous body absorbed, in the ordinary way, it would be iieces- 



* Phiiosoplucal Transactions, 182.9« 



