10-4 On the Theory of mixed Gases. 



vinccd me that well established facts contradict the essential 

 points of the theory. 



To begin with the objections of the former class :. I ain 

 ready to admit the existence of a fluid mixture, such as we 

 find described at page 3-13, in the fifth volume of the Man- 

 chester Memoirs, with this reservation, that tlie concession 

 is made merely for the purpose of showing such a combina- 

 tion to be incompatible with the usual course of things for 

 a moment ; which being demonstrated, the inutility of the 

 fundamental hypothesis will follow, as a necessary conse- 

 quence. To give a concise vic\v of ^Jr. Dalton's geweral 

 notion of the subject, we are to suppose a number of di- 

 stinct gases to be confined in a space common to them all ; 

 •which space may be circumscribed by the concave surface 

 of a vessel, or the compressing pow er of an external fluid : 

 besides this, we must imagine the constituent particles of 

 each individual gas to be actuated by a mutual repulsion, 

 while at the same time they remain perfectly indifferent to 

 the particles which compose the other fluids that are con- 

 fined in the common space : in short, we are to conceive 

 that the particles of each gas act upon those of their own 

 kind in the manner of elastic bodies, but that they obey the 

 laws of inelastic bodies as often as thev interfere with cor- 

 puscles of a different denomination. After premising the 

 preceding particulars, we may conceive a certain arrange- 

 ment of the elementary parts of a fluid mixture, in which 

 the adjustment of the whole shall be of a description which 

 will form, from particles of any one denomination, a homo- 

 geneous fluid possessing its oun separate equilibrium : coji- 

 sequenily each gas will exist as an independent being, and 

 exercise the functions of its elasticity just as if all the other 

 fluids were withdrawn from the common space. This sys- 

 tematic arrangement in an assemblage of gaseous substances 

 cannot be maintained unless one particular method of dis- 

 posing its component parts be observed, which consists in 

 that distribution of the elements which '^^'i'l produce a sepa- 

 rate equilibrium in the fluid composed by I lie elementary 

 corpuscles of eoch denomination ; consequentiv, the equi- 

 iibrium in question cannot take place unless the necessary 



disposition 



