140 Scientific Intelligence. 
fo giisg eine . the — depres, I heat the shell over a series 
of gas-burn The decomposition of the chlorate of potas 
takes place a “first ceieniy, iad rather suddenly towards the 
end of the vperation. A pressure-gauge, M, at the extremity of 
a long tube, lets me constantly observe the pressure and the pro- 
gress of the reaction. This gauge is graduated to 800 atmos- 
pheres, and was made for me expressly by Bourdon, of Paris. 
hen the reaction is terminated the pressure exceeds 500 
atmospheres; but it almost immediately sinks a ase and stops 
at 320 atmospheres. If at this moment I open the screw-tap, 7, 
which terminates the tube, a jet of liquid is distinotly ae seen to 0 spirt 
out with extreme violence. I close the tap, and in the course of a 
few moments a second jet—less abundant, however—can be ob- 
tained. 
Pieces of charcoal, slightly incandescent, put in this jet —_ 
spontaneously with inconceivable violence. have not yet s 
ittle of this liquid. 
ee ot I repeated this experiment before the majority of the 
mbers of our Physical gone moat e had three successive 
Z 
posal, worked by a steam-engine. 
Geneva, December 25, 1877. 
en—among 
expressly to assist at  ehis important experim 
At 10 o’clock in the evening the m nanieeater, which had risen to 
560 atmos —- a few ssinutes to 505, and remained 
this diminution in the pressure that part of the gas had assumed 
the liquid form under the fattaanes of the 140 degrees of cold to 
which it was exposed. The tap closing the orifice of the reve was 
then — and a jet of oxygen spirted out with extraordinary 
violence 
A ray of electric light being thrown on the sae’ 2 showed 
that it was chiefly composed of two parts ;—one central, and some 
centimeters long, the whiteness of which showed that the element 
was liquid, or even solid; the other exterior, the blue tint of 
