On Fluid Chlorine[1].
[Read March 13, 1823.]
It is well known that before the year 1810 the solid substance obtained by exposing chlorine, as usually procured, to a low temperature, was considered as the gas itself reduced into that form; and that Sir Humphry Davy first showed it to be a hydrate, the pure dry gas not being condensible even at a temperature of -40° F.
I took advantage of the late cold weather to procure crystals of this substance for the purpose of analysis. The results are contained in a short paper in the Quarterly Journal of Science, vol. xv.[2] Its composition is very nearly 27.7 chlorine, 72.3 water, or I proportional of chlorine and 10 of water.
The President of the Royal Society having honoured me by looking at these conclusions, suggested, that an exposure of the substance to heat under pressure would probably lead to interesting results; the following experiments were commenced at his request. Some hydrate of chlorine was prepared, and, being dried as well as could be by pressure in bibulous paper, was introduced into a sealed glass tube, the upper end of which was then hermetically closed. Being placed in water at 60°, it underwent no change; but when put into water at 100°, the substance fused, the tube became filled with a bright yellow atmosphere, and on examination was found to contain two fluid substances: the one, about three fourths of the whole, was of a faint yellow colour, having very much the appearance of water; the remaining fourth was a heavy bright yellow fluid, lying at the bottom of the former, without any apparent tendency to mix with it. As the tube cooled, the yellow atmosphere condensed into more of the yellow fluid, which floated in a film on the pale fluid, looking very like chloride of nitrogen; and at 70° the pale portion congealed, although even at 32° the yellow portion did not solidify. Heated up to 100° the yellow fluid appeared to boil, and again produced the bright coloured atmosphere. By putting the hydrate into a bent tube, afterwards hermetically sealed, I found it easy, after decomposing it by a heat of 100°, to distil the yellow fluid to one end of the tube, and to
