CHARLES I., PRINCE. 



CHEMISTRY. 



87 



could not fail to impress the native mind with 

 a sense of the complete and inevitable charac- 

 ter of the British triumph. Fighting contin- 

 ued throughout October, and even through 

 November, although the Government in the 

 early part of that month had declared the con- 

 test to be virtually over. Kreli was deposed, 

 and his country annexed to Cape Colony. On 

 April 6th, a South African exhibition was 

 opened at Cape Town by Sir Bartle Frere. It 

 was attended throughout with so great a suc- 

 cess, that the Government proposed to hold 

 another in 1878. Among the works of the 

 year containing information on Cape Colony 

 is " South Africa, Past and Present" (London, 

 1877). 



CHARLES I., Prince of Roumania, the sec- 

 ond son of Prince Charles Anthony of Hohen- 

 zollern, was born April 20, 1839. In 1866 he 

 was almost unanimously elected Prince of Rou- 

 mania by a popular vote of the country. The 

 task that awaited him was an extremely diffi- 

 cult one. He found the country in a wretched 

 condition. Education was entirely unprovided 

 for, the Treasury was empty, while no means 

 were at hand to replenish it, and while, worst 

 of all, the country was so torn by rival politi- 

 cal factions that it seemed impossible to es- 

 tablish a stable government. It is generally 

 admitted that during his reign the country has 

 made decided improvements in all these re- 

 spects. During the trouble that arose in 1875 

 between the Porte and her subjects in Bosnia 

 and the Herzegovina, and which, in 1876, in- 

 volved the tributary states of Servia and Mon- 

 tenegro, Prince Charles maintained an observ- 

 ant attitude, ready to take any measure which 

 might seem best for the country. Upon the 

 outbreak of the Russo-Turkish war, the time 

 seemed to have come to proclaim the entire in- 

 dependence of the principalities from Turkey, 

 and this was accordingly done by the Cham- 

 bers. Prince Charles thus became the first 

 sovereign of an independent Roumanian state. 

 In 1869 he married Princess Elizabeth of Wied. 

 The only child of this union, a daughter, died 

 in 1874. 



CHEMISTRY. Liquefaction of the Oases. 

 Three highly important communications were 

 made to the Paris Academy of Sciences toward 

 the end of the year, all having reference to the 

 liquefaction of gases. The first of these was 

 from M. Cailletet. He recounted the famous 

 researches of Faraday on this subject, and re- 

 marked that since that time the question has 

 hardly been discussed at all. As Andrews 

 has observed, those elnstic fluids which were 

 not condensed by light pressure, were supposed 

 to be capable of resisting any pressure what- 

 ever. When Cailletet began his researches there 

 were six gases which had resisted all efforts to 

 liquefy them ; these were hydrogen, nitrogen, 

 oxygen, oxide of carbon, bi-oxide of nitrogen, 

 and marsh gas. In the course of his experi- 

 ments with the bi-oxide of nitrogen, M. Caille- 

 tet found that, at the temperature of +3 Cent., 



it may be subjected to a pressure of 270 at- 

 mospheres and still remain in the gaseous state ; 

 but on reducing the temperature to 11 Cent., 

 a pressure of 104 atmospheres suffices to lique- 

 fy it. M. Cailletet further found that, on sub- 

 jecting marsh gas to a pressure of 180 atmos- 

 pheres (temperature not stated), and then with- 

 drawing the pressure, there appears a mist 

 (brouillard) in the gaseous mass. Now, this 

 mist can be nothing else but marsh gas lique- 

 fied by the extreme cold and the compres- 

 sion. The above communication from M. Cail- 

 letet was read in the meeting of the Academy 

 held on November 26th. In publishing it, 

 on December 1st, the editor of a scientific 

 journal in Paris remarks as follows: "Every- 

 thing goes to show that oxide of carbon and 

 oxygen, whose laws of compression are analo- 

 gous to those of the preceding bodies, will 

 also yield to M. Cailletet's method." The 

 prediction was quickly verified, and more than 

 verified, if the expression may be used ; for, 

 at the meeting of the same Academy on De- 

 cember 24th, M. Cailletet announced the li- 

 quefaction of oxygen, and M. Dumas read a 

 letter from Raoul Pictet, of Geneva, stating 

 that he too had liquefied oxygen, though ac- 

 cording to a method very different from that 

 of M. Cailletet. The latter's communication 

 was to the effect that, on subjecting oxygen 

 simultaneously to a temperature of 29 Cent., 

 and to a pressure of 270 atmospheres, and 

 then suddenly withdrawing the pressure, the 

 volume of oxygen is filled with a mist which, 

 beyond a doubt, consists of oxygen in the 

 liquid, if not in the solid, state. M. Pictet's 

 note stated that, on December 22d, he had 

 liquefied oxygen, but, as it would appear, on a 

 larger scale. His apparatus consisted of a re- 

 tort of wrought-iron, holding chlorate of pot- 

 ash, and communicating with a very thick and 

 very strong glass tube. The oxygen, set free 

 by heat, accumulates in the tube, and itself 

 produces a pressure of 320 atmospheres. It 

 is then cooled to 140 Cent, below zero by the 

 following process: Liquid sulphurous acid is 

 made to circulate around tubes containing 

 liquefied carbonic acid, and this, in its turn, 

 being reduced to an extremely low tempera- 

 ture, is made to circulate around the tube con- 

 taining the oxygen. The circulation is effected 

 by the aid of four pumps driven by a steam- 

 engine of 15 horse-power, and they are kept 

 working for several hours. If, now, the orifice 

 of the tube containing the oxygen be suddenly 

 opened, its release determines the appearance 

 both of the "mist" mentioned by Cailletet, 

 and also the production of a certain quantity 

 of liquid, which remains in the tube. Both 

 Cailletet and Pictet have since succeeded in 

 liquefying all of the so-called "permanent 

 gases." 



The subjoined woodcuts illustrate the re- 

 spective apparatus and modus operandi both of 

 Pictet and of Cailletet. In Pictet's apparatus 

 (Figs. 1 and 2) are two pairs of compound ex- 



