Page:Experimental researches in chemistry and.djvu/116

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
1844.]
of Bodies generally existing as Gases.
101

down in a vertical direction. One of the glass condensing siphon tubes, already described, fig. 1, was screwed on to the lower end of the sliding tube, and the upper end of the latter was connected with a communicating tube in two lengths, reaching from it to the condensing pumps; this tube was small, of brass, and 9½ feet in length; it passed 6 inches horizontally from the condensing pumps, then rose vertically for 2 feet, afterwards proceeded horizontally for 7 feet, and finally turned down and was immediately connected with the sliding tube. By this means the latter could be raised and lowered vertically, without any strain upon the connexions, and the condensing tube lowered into the cold bath in vacuo, or raised to have its contents examined at pleasure. The capacity of the connecting tubes beyond the last condensing pump was only 2 cubic inches.

When experimenting with any particular gas, the apparatus was put together fast and tight, except the solid terminal screw-plug at the short end of the condensing tube, which, being the very extremity of the apparatus, was left a little loose. Then, by the condensing pumps, abundance of gas was passed through the apparatus to sweep out every portion of air, after which the terminal plug was screwed up, the cold bath arranged, and the combined effects of cold and pressure brought to unite upon the gas.

There are many gases which condense at less than the pressure of one atmosphere when submitted to the cold of a carbonic acid bath in air (which latter can upon occasions be brought considerably below -106° Fahr.). These it was easy, therefore, to reduce, by sending them through small conducting tubes into tubular receivers placed in the cold bath. When the receivers had previously been softened in a spirit-lamp flame, and narrow necks formed on them, it was not difficult, by a little further management, hermetically to seal up these substances in their condensed state. In this manner chlorine, cyanogen, ammonia, sulphuretted hydrogen, arseniuretted hydrogen, hydriodic acid, hydrobromic acid, and even carbonic acid, were obtained, sealed up in tubes in the liquid state; and euchlorine was also secured in a tube receiver with a cap and screw-plug. By using a carbonic acid bath, first cooled in vacuo, there is no doubt other condensed gases could be secured in the same way.