Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 29.djvu/544

528 between unlike atoms is a superior sort of cohesion, powerful and absolute; and this force was thought to operate between two elementary bodies directly, without the intervention of a third kind of matter. That this so-called affinity is radically affected by physical state, by heat, and by electricity, has been admitted, but the conviction is growing in the minds of chemists that many circumstances influencing the union and separation of elements have been overlooked; they are beginning to believe that chemical action does not take place between two substances, and that the presence of a third body is important, if not, indeed, indispensable. Many years ago the word catalytic was coined to describe certain isolated phenomena little understood. These phenomena are familiar to chemists, and the number is increasing; the word catalytic is, however, in disfavor, and the term contact-actions is now current. The well-known influence of finely divided and heated platinum in effecting the union of sulphur dioxide and oxygen and the action of metallic silver in decomposing ozone without itself undergoing any change are examples. In these and similar changes one of the substances indispensable to the reaction remains unchanged, and its rôle can not be expressed in equations.

There is another class of reactions in which one body acts upon another only through the aid of a third, which maintains its identity at the close of the reaction, yet is known to be decomposed and recomposed successively throughout the operation. By heating a relatively small quantity of cobaltous oxide with bleaching-powder, the latter is wholly decomposed, yielding calcium chloride, water, and oxygen, yet at the close of the reaction the cobaltous oxide is found unaltered. It has been shown that it is successively decomposed and recomposed during the operation. In their investigation on "Simultaneous Oxidation and Reduction by means of Hydrocyanic Acid," Professors Michael and Palmer consider it probable that many of the most important reactions of animal and vegetable life are due to the intercession of substances which undergo change during the reactions, and in the end return to their original form. They suggest also that some of these reactions seem to be dependent on substances capable of decomposing water into its elements, or into hydrogen and hydroxyl; and, when the chemist can command a reagent possessing that property at a low temperature, their imitation in the laboratory may follow its discovery.

That chemically pure zinc is not soluble in dilute sulphuric acid has been known since Faraday's day; that sodium does not combine with perfectly dry chlorine, even if the metal be heated to its fusing point, was shown by Wanklyn in 1869; more recently, Mr. Cowper has found that dry chlorine does not attack Dutch metal; six years ago, Mr. H. B. Dixon demonstrated before the British Association that a well-dried mixture of carbon monoxide and oxygen can be subjected to the electric spark without exploding. In March, 1885, Mr.