SECT. II.] 



PROPERTIES OF STEAM. 



77 



OF THE ELASTIC FORCE OF THE VAPOUR OF SULPHURET OF CARBON. 



109. There is a remarkable compound of sulphur with carbon, which is 

 usually distinguished by the name sulphuret of carbon, but is sometimes called 

 carburet of sulphur. It is liquid, and as transparent and colourless as water. It 

 has an acrid and pungent taste, somewhat aromatic : its smell is nauseous and 

 peculiar: its specific gravity is 1-272, and it boils briskly and distils at from 110 

 to 116, depending on its purity. When heated to about 680 or 700 in the air, it 

 takes fire and burns with a blue flame. It is scarcely soluble in water. It appears 

 to be a compound of 



Sulphur - 84-21 



Carbon - 15-79 



100-00 



It may be prepared by mixing about 10 parts of well-calcined charcoal in 

 powder with 50 parts of pulverized native pyrites, and distilling the mixture from 

 a retort into a tubulated receiver surrounded by ice : somewhat more than one part 

 of sulphuret of carbon may be obtained from the above quantities. 



110. It appears to me that it might be used in a steam engine with some 

 advantage, provided it does not act too much on the metallic parts, nor undergo a 

 change by the continued transition from heat to cold ; for^it has a high elastic 

 force at a low temperature, being equal to about 4 atmospheres at 212, and 

 therefore the advantage of a high pressure engine might be obtained without the 

 inconvenience of a high temperature. 



EXPERIMENTS ON THE ELASTIC FORCE OF VAPOUR FROM SULPHURET OF CARBON. 



These experiments I have attempted to represent by calculation : as the rule by 

 which the numbers were calculated was formed from the experiments in the fol- 



