Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 26.djvu/262

250 (21° C, or 70° Fahr.), he found that the same result was produced, but more slowly; and it seemed to be heralded in advance by a more rapid diminution in volume previous to the beginning of the change, which continued after the process had been accomplished; as if an anticipatory preparation for the liquid state were going on previous to the completion of the change. Performing the experiment again at 32° C. (90° Fahr.), the anticipatory preparation and the after continuation of the contraction were more marked, and, instead of a separate and distinct liquid, wavy and mobile striæ were perceived on the sides of the vessel as the only signs of a change of state which had not yet been effected. At temperatures above 32° C. (90° Fahr,), there were neither striæ nor liquefaction, but there seemed to be a suggestion of them, for, under a particular degree of pressure, the density of the gas was augmented, and its volume diminished at an increasing rate. The temperature of 32° C. (90° Fahr.) is, then, a limit, marking a division between the temperatures which permit and those which prevent liquefaction; it is the critical point, at which is defined the separation, for carbonic acid, between two very distinct states of matter. Below this point, the particular matter may assume the aspect of a liquid; above it, the gas can not change its appearance, but enters into the opposite constitution from that of a liquid.

Generally, a liquid has considerably greater density than its vapor. But, if a vessel containing both is heated, the liquid experiences a dilatation which is gradually augmented till it equals and even exceeds that of the gas; whence, of course, an equal volume of the liquid will weigh less and less. On the other hand, a constantly larger quantity of vapor is formed, which accumulates above the liquid and becomes heavier and heavier. Now, if the density of the vapor increases, and that of the liquid diminishes, they will reach a point, under a suitable temperature, when they will be the same. There will then be no reason for the liquid to sink or the vapor to rise, or for the existence of any line of separation between them, and they will be mixed and confounded. They will no longer be distinguishable by their heat of constitution. It is true that, in passing into the state of a vapor, a liquid absorbs a great deal of latent heat, but that is employed in scattering the molecules and keeping them at a distance; and there will be none of it if the distance does not increase. We are then, at this stage of our experiments, in the presence of a critical point, at which we do not know whether the matter is liquid or gaseous; for, in either condition, it has the same density, the same heat of constitution, and the same properties. It is a new state, the gaso-liquid state. An experiment of Cagniard-Latour re-enforced this explanation of the phenomena. Heating ether in closed vessels to high temperatures, he brought it to a point where the liquid could be made wholly to disappear, or to be suddenly reformed on the slightest elevation or the slightest depression of temperature, accordingly as it was raised just above or cooled