122 Combination of Hydrogen and Chlorine. 



established that chlorine is liberated when hydrochloric acid 

 is mixed with equal volumes of hydrogen and oxygen and 

 the mixture is exploded. The excess of heated oxygen 

 takes hydrogen from the hydrogen chloride under these 

 conditions which are comparable with those obtaining when 

 a mixture of hydrogen, chlorine, and oxygen is exploded. 



We are now engaged in measuring the proportions of 

 hydrochloric acid and steam formed under conditions when 

 the products of explosion are kept within the sphere of 

 chemical action. Since our communication was made at the 

 Newcastle meeting, and after a brief account of it had 

 appeared in Nature (October 10), a paper was published in 

 the Comptes-Rendus (October 21) by MM. Hautefeuille and 

 Margottet — " Sur la syn these simultanee de l'eau et de l'acide 

 chlorhydrique." These authors find that hydrogen divides 

 itself between chlorine and oxygen, unless the volume of 

 chlorine is relatively large. When the chlorine is in large 

 excess only hydrochloric acid is formed. The experiments 

 appear to have been made at ordinary temperatures. 



Ordinary Meeting, December 24th, 1889. 



Mr. HARRY Grimshaw, F.C.S., in the Chair. 



Being Christmas Eve, the attendance was small, and, 

 the usual formal business having been despatched and no 

 paper being presented, the meeting was closed. 



