Page:Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Vol 69.djvu/425

Rh then left all night, and the stratifications examined next morning. The blue colour to each face was now unmistakably visible. The refilling with hydrogen and exhausting was then continued. It was not possible in this way to get the tube entirely free from mercury, although it got less and less, as shown by the diminution of the blue faces.

Occasionally, when no mercury was present, a faint blue edging to some of the front pink strata was seen. This blue was too faint to show lines in its spectrum. After much searching the blue tint was traced to the phosphoric drying tubes. A clean tube was taken for stratifications, and sealed to the apparatus used in the last experiments. The whole was exhausted to a high point, and one of the phosphoric- anhydride tubes was gently heated with a gas flame, the current kept going. Instantly a flood of blue light swept through the tube, and when concentrated in a narrow constriction the light showed a compli- cated spectrum which was not recognised : none of the characteristic lines of the phosphorus spectrum could be seen in it. The tube was cleared of the blue colour by introducing hydrogen and pumping it out a few times, and then hydrogen was introduced and exhaustion continued to the stratification point. The strata now were pink with no appearance of blue. "Warming the phosphoric anhydride tulx3 at once reproduced the faint blue edging to the pink discs. This blue colour was different both in tint and intensity to the blue colour pro- duced by mercury, but it was too faint to show a spectrum except in the constricted part.

It is of importance to ascertain whether the body producing this blue colour can be removed from the phosphoric anhydride. The drying tube was again heated to the subliming point of the anhydride, hydrogen passed in, and the pump worked until the vacuum was almost non-conducting. The heating, passing in hydrogen, and pump- ing were several times repeated, the impurities diminishing each time. Ultimately a point was reached when, the tube being non-conducting, heating the phosphoric anhydride did not communicate any gas to the vacuum tube. At this stage the phosphoric anhydride still retained unimpaired its affinity for water. In any accurate experiment, there- fore, the phosphoric anhydride tubes should have a preliminary heat- ing in a vacuum to eliminate the impurity. This may be done with several tubes at a time, when they can be sealed at each end and preserved for future use.

It is thus seen that this blue glow is due to some impurity in the phosphoric anhydride. Likewise I have shown from the examination of its spectrum that it is not due to phosphorus. The glow probably is due to some intermediate oxide of phosphorus. In any accurate work with the mercury pump, where phosphoric anhydride is used as the drying agent, this source of impurity must not be overlooked.