Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 63.djvu/222

218 passing through it was not luminous. This experiment would seem to leave no doubt that the incandescence is caused by latent heat, yet further evidence was produced. In another experiment in which diluted acetylene was used it required a higher heat to cause the decomposition and luminosity. This latter is the condition existing in a flame, and the temperature there found is above that required. In other experiments it was found that if the flame temperature were high enough the luminosity was directly proportional to the amount of acetylene in the flame at the point where luminosity generally begins. Acetylene was introduced at the corresponding place in a non-luminous flame through very fine holes in a small capillary platinum tube, and the rate of its flow, as well as that of the illuminating gas, was measured and controlled so as to have present the amount of acetylene, which analysis showed to exist in a similar luminous flame. At the holes there was an intense light, and dull red streams of carbon passed upward in the flame.

Lewes sums up his conclusions, drawn from all his work, about as follows: When the hydrocarbon gas leaves the jet at which it is burned, those portions which come in contact with the air are consumed and form a wall of flame, which surrounds the issuing gases. The unburnt gas in its passage through the lower heated area undergoes a number of chemical changes, brought about by the heat radiated from the flame walls; the principal change being the conversion of hydrocarbons into acetylene, hydrogen and methane. The temperature of the flame rapidly increases with the distance from the jet and reaches a point at which it is high enough to decompose acetylene into carbon and hydrogen with a rapidity almost that of an explosion. The latent heat so suddenly set free is localized by the proximity of carbon particles, which by absorbing it become incandescent and emit the larger part of the light given out by the flame; although the heat of combustion causes them to glow somewhat until they come into contact with oxygen and are consumed. This external heating gives rise to little of the light.

There have been opponents to this theory of the cause of luminosity—as there are, fortunately, of all theories—but the evidence is so strong and covers so many points, and so many investigators have confirmed one part or another of the work, that it has been generally accepted as a true statement of the facts with which it deals.