placed the flask in cold water until its temperature was reduced from about 90° to 10° C., fully expecting that the sound would vanish at this temperature; but, notwithstanding the tenuity of the vapor, the sound extracted from it was not only distinct but loud.
Three empty flasks, filled with ordinary air, were placed in a freezing mixture for a quarter of an hour. On being rapidly transferred to the intermittent beam, sounds much louder than those obtainable from dry air were produced. Warming these flasks in the flame of a spirit-lamp until all visible humidity had been removed, and afterward urging dried air through them, on being placed in the intermittent beam the sound in each case was found to have fallen almost to silence. Sending, by means of a glass tube, a puff of breath from the lungs into a dried flask, the power of emitting sound was immediately restored. When, instead of breathing into a dry flask, the common air of the laboratory was urged through it, the sounds became immediately intensified. I was by no means prepared for the extraordinary delicacy of this new method of testing the athermancy and diathermancy of gases and vapors, and it can not be otherwise than satisfactory to me to find that particular vapor, whose alleged deportment toward radiant heat has been so strenuously denied, affirming thus audibly its true character.
After what has been stated regarding aqueous vapor, we are prepared for the fact that an exceedingly small percentage of any highly athermanous gas diffused in air suffices to exalt the sounds. An accidental observation will illustrate this point. A flask was filled with coal-gas, and held bottom upward in the intermittent beam. The sounds produced were of a force corresponding to the known absorptive energy of coal-gas. The flask was then placed upright, with its mouth open upon a table, and permitted to remain there for nearly an hour. On being restored to the beam, the sounds produced were far louder than those which could be obtained from common air.[1]
Transferring a small flask or a test-tube from a cold place to the intermittent beam, it is sometimes found to be practically silent for a moment, after which the sounds become distinctly audible. This I take to be due to the vaporization by the calorific beam of the thin film of moisture adherent to the glass.
My previous experiments having satisfied me of the generality of the rule that volatile liquids and their vapors absorb the same rays, I thought it probable that the introduction of a thin layer of its liquid, even in the case of a most energetic vapor, would detach the effective rays, and thus quench the sounds. The experiment was made, and the conclusion verified. A layer of water, formic ether, sulphuric ether, or acetic ether, one eighth of an inch in thickness, rendered the transmitted beam powerless to produce any musical sound. These
- ↑ The method here described is, I doubt not, applicable to the detection of extremely small quantities of fire-damp in mines.
