Page:On the various forces of nature and their relations to each other.djvu/89

Rh consequences which are due to this change in volume by heat—the mighty powers of steam and the tremendous explosions which are sometimes produced by this force of water. I want you now to see another experiment, which will perhaps give you a better illustration of the bulk occupied by a body when in the state of vapour. Here is a substance which we call iodine, and I am about to submit this solid body to the same kind of condition as regards heat that I did the water and the ether [putting a few grains of iodine into a hot glass globe, which immediately became filled with the violet vapour], and you see the same kind of change produced. Moreover, it gives us the opportunity of observing how beautiful is the violet-coloured vapour from this black substance, or rather the mixture of the vapour with air (for I would not wish you to understand that this globe is entirely filled with the vapour of iodine.

If I had taken mercury and converted it into vapour (as I could easily do), I should have a perfectly colourless vapour; for you must understand this about vapours, that bodies in what we call the vaporous, or the gaseous state, are