Page:Experimental researches in chemistry and.djvu/101

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86
On Fluid Chlorine.
1823.

separate it from the remaining portion. In this way a more complete decomposition of the hydrate was effected; and, when the whole was°allowed to cool, neither of the fluids solidified at temperatures above 34°, and the yellow portion not even at 0°. When the two were mixed together, they gradually combined at temperatures below 60°, and formed the same solid substances as that first introduced. If, when the fluids were separated, the tube was cut in the middle, the parts flew asunder as if with an explosion, the whole of the yellow portion disappeared, and there was a powerful atmosphere of chlorine produced; the pale portion on the contrary remained, and when examined, proved to be a weak solution of chlorine in water, with a little muriatic acid, probably from the impurity of the hydrate used. When that end of the tube in which the yellow fluid lay was broken under a jar of water, there was an immediate production of chlorine gas.

I at first thought that muriatic acid and euclxlorine had been formed; then, that two new hydrates of chlorine had been produced; but at last I suspected that the chlorine had been entirely separated from the water by the heat, and condensed into a dry fluid by the mere pressure of its own abundant vapour. If that were true, it followed that chlorine gas, when compressed, should be condensed into the same fluid; and as the atmosphere in the tube in which the fluid lay was not very yellow at 50° or 60°, it seemed probable that the pressure required was not beyond what could readily be obtained by a condensing syringe. A long tube was therefore furnished with a cap and stopcock, then exhausted of air and filled with chlorine, and being held vertically with the syringe upwards, air was forced in, which thrust the chlorine to the bottom of the tube, and gave a pressure of about 4 atmospheres. Being now cooled, there was an immediate deposit in films, which appeared to be hydrate, formed by water contained in the gas and vessels, but some of the yellow fluid was also produced. As this, however, might also contain a portion of the water present, a perfectly dry tube and apparatus were taken, and the chlorine left for some time over a bath of sulphuric acid before it was introduced. Upon throwing in air and giving pressure, there was now no solid film formed, but the clear yellow fluid was deposited, and more abundantly still upon cooling. After