Page:Experimental researches in electricity.djvu/127

Rh the particles of a body existing in the solid, the liquid, and the gaseous state; but when we speak of the gaseous state as being due to the mutual repulsions of the particles or of their atmospheres, although we may err in imagining each particle to be a little nucleus to an atmosphere of heat, or electricity, or any other agent, we are still not likely to be in error in considering the elasticity as dependent on mutuality of action. Now this mutual relation fails altogether on the side of the gaseous particles next to the platina, and we might be led to expect à priori a deficiency of elastic force there to at least one-half; for if, as Dalton has shown, the elastic force of the particles of one gas cannot act against the elastic force of the particles of another, the two being as vacua to each other, so is it far less likely that the particles of the platina can exert any influence on those of the gas against it, such as would be exerted by gaseous particles of its own kind.

363. But the diminution of power to one-half on the side of the gaseous body towards the metal is only a slight result of what seems to me to flow as a necessary consequence of the known constitution of gases. An atmosphere of one gas or vapour, however dense or compressed, is in effect as a vacuum to another; thus, if a little water were put into a vessel containing a dry gas, as air, of the pressure of one hundred atmospheres, as much vapour of the water would rise as if it were in a perfect vacuum. Here the particles of watery vapour appear to have no difficulty in approaching within any distance of the particles of air, being influenced solely by relation to particles of their own kind; and if it be so with respect to a body having the same elastic powers as itself, how much more surely must it be so with particles, like those of the platina, or other limiting body, which at the same time that they have not these elastic powers, are also unlike it in nature. Hence it would seem to result that the particles of hydrogen or any other gas or vapour which are next to the platina, etc., must be in such contact with it as if they were in the liquid state, and therefore almost infinitely closer to it than they are to each other, even though the metal be supposed to exert no attractive influence over them.

364. A third and very important consideration in favour of the mutual action of gases under these circumstances is their perfect miscibility. If fluid bodies capable of combining together are also capable of mixture, they do combine when they are mingled, not waiting for any other determining circumstance; but if two such gases as oxygen and hydrogen are put together,