Page:Experimental researches in chemistry and.djvu/422

1857.] is placed on pure water, it immediately throws out a film which appears to cover the whole of the surface; in a little while the film thickens around the particle and is easily distinguished by its high reflective power. It is this film which reduces the gold in solution, being itself consumed in the action; the result is a continued extension from the phosphorus outwards, which, after it has covered the solution with a thin film of gold, continues to cause a compression of the parts around the phosphorus and an accumulation there, rendering the gold at a distance of half an inch from the phosphorus so thick, that it is brilliant by reflexion and nearly opake by transmission; whilst near to the phosphorus the forming film is so thin as to be observed only on careful examination, and is still travelling outwards and compressing the surrounding parts more and more. The phosphorus is very slowly consumed; a particle not weighing $1⁄100$th of a grain will remain for four or five days on the surface of water before it disappears.

Though the particles of these films adhere together strongly, as maybe seen by their stiffness on water, still the films cannot be considered as continuous. If they were, those made by vapour of phosphorus could not thicken during their formation, neither could they dry on glass in the short time found sufficient for that purpose. Experimentally also, I find that vapours and gases can pass through them. Very thin films without folds did not sensibly conduct the electricity of a single pair of Grove's plates; thicker films did conduct; yet with these proofs that these films could not be considered as continuous, they acted as thin plates upon light, producing the concentric rings of colours round the phosphorus at their first formation, though their thickness then could scarcely be the $1⁄100$th, perhaps not the $1⁄500$th of a wave undulation of light. Platinum, palladium, and rhodium produced films, showing these concentric rings very well.

Many of these films of gold, both thick and thin, which, being of a grey colour originally, were laid on a solution of cyanide of potassium to dissolve slowly, changed colour as they dissolved and became green; if change occurred, it was always towards green. On the other hand, when laid on a solution of chlorine, the change during solution was towards an amethyst or ruby tint. The films were not acted upon by