Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 7.djvu/290

276 late Master of the Mint, upon the rate at which different gases were mixed together. He found that if he divided a vessel by a thin partition made of black-lead or graphite, and put different gases on the two opposite sides, they would mix together nearly as fast as though there was nothing between them. The difference was, that the plate of graphite made it more easy to measure the rate of mixture; and Dr. Graham made measurements and came to conclusions which are exactly such as are required by the molecular theory. It is found by a process of mathematical calculation that the rate of diffusion of different gases depends upon the weight of the molecules. Now, a molecule of oxygen is sixteen times as heavy as a molecule of hydrogen, and it is found upon experiment that hydrogen goes through a septum or wall of graphite four times as fast as oxygen does. Four times four are sixteen. We express that rule in mathematics by saying that the rate of diffusion of gas is inversely as the square root of the mass of its molecules. If one molecule is thirty-six times as heavy as another—the molecule of chlorine is nearly that multiple of hydrogen—it will diffuse itself at one-sixth of the rate.

This rule is a deduction from the molecular theory, and it is found, like innumerable other such deductions, to come right in practice. But now observe what is the consequence of this. Suppose that, instead of taking one gas and making it diffuse itself through a wall, we take a mixture of two gases. Suppose we put oxygen and hydrogen into a vessel which has one side of it made of graphite, and we exhaust the air from the other side, then the hydrogen will go through this wall four times as fast as the oxygen will. Consequently, as soon as one side is full there will be a great deal more hydrogen in it than oxygen—that is to say, that we shall have sifted the oxygen from the hydrogen, not completely, but in a great measure, precisely as by means of a screen we can sift large coals from small ones. Now, suppose, when we have oxygen gas unmixed with any other, the molecules are of two sorts and of two different weights. Then you see that if we make that gas pass through a porous wall, the lighter particles would pass through first, and we should get two different specimens of oxygen gas, in one of which the molecules would be lighter than in the other. The properties of one of these specimens of oxygen gas would necessarily be different from those of the other, and that difference might be found by very easy processes. If there were any perceptible difference between the average weight of the molecules on the two sides of the septum, there would be no difficulty in finding that out. No such difference has ever been observed. If we put any single gas into a vessel, and we filter it through a septum of black-lead into another vessel, we find no difference between the gas on one side of the wall and the gas on the other side. That is to say, if there is any difference it is too small to be perceived by our present means of observation. It is upon that sort of evidence that the