Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 25.djvu/606

590 Or, still further, as an experiment of a wholly different class, a known weight of chloride of barium may be dissolved in water, and, after precipitation with sulphuric acid, the baric sulphate collected by filtration and weighed, when the definite relation between the weight of the precipitate and the weight of the chloride of barium will appear.

For a last experiment let the student neutralize a weighed amount of dilute hydrochloric acid with aqua ammonia, noting approximately the amount of ammonia required. Let him now evaporate the solution on a water-bath, and weigh the resulting saline product; taking next the same quantity of hydrochloric acid as before, and, having added twice the previous quantity of ammonia, let him obtain and weigh the resulting sal-ammoniac as before. A third time let him begin with half the quantity of hydrochloric acid, and, adding as much ammonia as in the first case, again repeat the process. It is obvious what the result of these experiments must be, but, without telling the student what he is to expect, it will be a good exercise to ask him to draw his own inferences from the results. Of course, he must previously have so far been made acquainted with the properties of hydrochloric acid and ammonia as to know that the excess of either would escape when the saline solution was evaporated over a water-bath. But with this limited knowledge he will be able to deduce the law of definite proportions from the experimental results thus simply obtained.

The third of the fundamental laws of chemistry stated above (generally known as the law of Gay-Lussac) declares that, when two or more of the factors or products of a chemical process are aëriform, the volumes of these gaseous substances bear to each other a very simple ratio. Here, again, numerous experiments may be contrived to illustrate the law. Water, when decomposed by electricity, yields hydrogen and oxygen gases whose volumes bear to each other the ratio of two to one. When hydrochloric-acid gas is decomposed by sodium amalgam, the volume of the original gas bears to that of the residual hydrogen the ratio also of two to one. When ammonia is decomposed by chlorine, the volume of the resulting nitrogen gas is one third of that of the chlorine gas employed.

Having illustrated these three general laws, attention should be directed to the fact that the nature of a chemical process and the laws which it obeys are results of observation and involve no theory whatsoever. On these facts the science of chemistry is built. The modern system of chemistry, however, assumes what is known as the molecular theory, and by means of this theory attempts to explain all these facts and show their relation to each other. Here the distinction between fact and theory must be insisted upon, and also the value of theory for classifying facts and directing observation.

A molecule is now defined, and, if the student has not studied physics sufficiently to become acquainted with the outlines of the kinetic theory of gases, this theory must be developed sufficiently to give the