Page:Experimental researches in chemistry and.djvu/59

44 inches, or twice the volume of the olefiant gas (barometer 29.1 inches). It was now placed for the day (Oct. 18) in the rays of the sun; but the weather was not very fine. In the evening the solid crystalline substance. had formed in abundance, and very little fluid remained. When placed over chlorine, not the slightest change in volume had been produced. The stopcock was now opened under mercury, and a small portion of the metal having entered, it was agitated in the retort, to absorb the chlorine; the neck of the retort was left open under the mercury all night, and the whole agitated from time to time. Next morning (barometer 29.6) the mercury which had entered, being passed into the neck of the retort, stood at a certain mark 6 inches above the level of the mercury in the trough, occupying 1.25 cubic inch, and leaving 24 cubic inches filled by the expanded muriatic acid gas and nitrogen. These volumes, corrected to the pressure of 29.1 inches, give 5.78 cubic inches for the chlorine absorbed, and 19.47 cubic inches for the muriatic acid gas, &c. These absorbed by water left 1.2 cubic inch of nitrogen; so that the gases in the retort, after the action of solar light, were, —

and before that action,—

Hence 23.47 cubic inches of chlorine had disappeared, and 9.13 of these had entered into combination with an equal volume of 9.13 cubic inches of hydrogen liberated from the 5 cubic inches of olefiant gas, to form muriatic acid; and consequently 14.34 cubic inches of chlorine remained combined with the carbon of the 5 cubic inches of olefiant gas. Here the volume of chlorine actually employed is not quite five times that of the olefiant gas, nor the volume of muriatic acid gas produced equal to four times that of the olefiant gas; but they approximate; and when it is remembered that the conversion was not quite perfect, and that the gases used would