416 ‘Experiments on the Gas from Coal. 
olefiant gas, which I had not anticipated, 
admits’ however of being satisfactorily ex- 
plained on known principles. Water and 
similar fluids absorb, according to Dalton, 
about 1th, according to Saussure about 5th, 
of their volume of olefiant gas. The utmost 
quantity, therefore, which a cubic foot of | 
lime liquor, acting upon pure olefiant gas, 
could absorb, would be jth of a cubic foot. 
But agreeably to a law discovered by Mr. 
Dalton, and explained and confirmed by my 
own experiments,* a cubic foot of lime li- 
quor, when brought into contact with 36 cu- 
bic feet of olefiant gas mixed with 164 cubic 
feet of other gases, can absorb only about 
one fifth of one seventh, or th, of a cubic 
foot of olefiant Pea This quantity, which 
does not exceed ,*.,th part of the olefiant 
gas present in 200 cubic feet of the best coal 
gas, is too trifling a loss to be discoverable 
by experiment, or to be worthy of being re- 
garded in practice, even when doubled by a 
second washing. It is therefore consistent 
with general reasoning, as well as with expe- 
riment, that the washing of coal gas with 
a due proportion of lime liquor should entirely 
* Nicholson’s Journal, 8vo. vii. 297. and Thomson’s 
Annals, vii, 214, 
