Page:Experimental researches in electricity.djvu/118

92 330. These results are abundantly sufficient to show that the mere mechanical cleansing of the surface of the platina is sufficient to enable it to exert its combining power over oxygen and hydrogen at common temperatures.

331. I now tried the effect of heat in conferring this property upon platina (320). Plates which had no action on the mixture of oxygen and hydrogen were heated by the flame of a freshly trimmed spirit-lamp, urged by a mouth blowpipe, and when cold were put into tubes of the mixed gases: they acted slowly at first, but after two or three hours condensed nearly all the gases.

332. A plate of platina, which was about one inch wide and two and three-quarters in length, and which had not been used in any of the preceding experiments, was curved a little so as to enter a tube, and left in a mixture of oxygen and hydrogen for thirteen hours: not the slightest action or combination of the gases occurred. It was withdrawn at the pneumatic trough from the gas through the water, heated red hot by the spirit-lamp and blowpipe, and then returned when cold into the same portion of gas. In the course of a few minutes diminution of the gases could be observed, and in forty-five minutes about one cubical inch and a quarter had disappeared. In many other experiments platina plates when heated were found to acquire the power of combining oxygen and hydrogen.

333. But it happened not unfrequently that plates, after being heated, showed no power of combining oxygen and hydrogen gases, though left undisturbed in them for two hours. Sometimes also it would happen that a plate which, having been heated to dull redness, acted feebly, upon being heated to whiteness ceased to act; and at other times a plate which, having been slightly heated, did not act, was rendered active by a more powerful ignition.

334. Though thus uncertain in its action, and though often diminishing the power given to the plates at the positive pole of the pile (320), still it is evident that heat can render platina active which before was inert (331). The cause of its occasional failure appears to be due to the surface of the metal becoming soiled, either from something previously adhering to it, which is made to adhere more closely by the action of the heat, or from matter communicated from the flame of the lamp, or from the air itself. It often happens that a polished plate of platina, when heated by the spirit-lamp and a blow-pipe, becomes dulled and clouded on its surface by something either