Page:Experimental researches in chemistry and.djvu/233

218 illustration it affords of the difficulty of confining dry gases over mercury alone. Two volumes of hydrogen gas were mixed with one volume of oxygen gas, in a jar over the mercurial trough, and fused chloride of lime introduced, for the purpose of removing hygrometric water. Three glass bottles, of about three ounces capacity each, were selected for the accuracy with which their glass stoppers had been ground into them; they were well cleaned and dried, no grease being allowed upon the stopper. The mixture of gases was transferred into these bottles over the mercurial trough, until they were about four-fifths full, the rest of the space being occupied by the mercury. The stoppers were then replaced as tightly as could be, the bottles put into glasses in an inverted position, and mercury poured round the stoppers and necks, until it rose considerably above them, though not quite so high as the level of the mercury within. Thus arranged they were put into a cupboard, which happened to be dark, and were sealed up. This was done on June 28, 1825, and on September the 15th, 1826, after a lapse of fifteen months, they were examined. The seals were unbroken, and the bottles found exactly as they were left, the mercury still being higher on the inside than the outside. One of them was taken to the mercurial trough, and part of its gaseous contents transferred; upon examination it proved to be common air, no traces of the original mixture of oxygen and hydrogen remaining in the bottle. A second was examined in the same manner; it proved to contain an explosive mixture. A portion of the gas introduced into a tube, with a piece of spongy platina, caused dull ignition of the platina; no explosion took place, but a diminution to rather less than one-halfl The residue supported combustion a little better than common air. It would appear, therefore, that nearly a half of the mixture of oxygen and hydrogen had escaped from it, and been replaced by common air. The third bottle, examined in a similar manner, yielded also an explosive mixture, and upon trial was found to contain nearly two-fifths of a mixture of oxygen and hydrogen, the rest being very little better in oxygen than common air.

There is no good reason for supposing that this capability of escape between glass and mercury is confined to the mixture here experimented with; probably every other gas, having no