Page:The Liquefaction of Gases.djvu/10

6 much the appearance of water; the remaining fourth was a heavy bright yellow fluid, lying at the bottom of the former, without any apparent tendency to mix with it. As the tube cooled, the yellow atmosphere condensed into more of the yellow fluid, which floated in a film on the pale fluid, looking very like chloride of nitrogen; and at 70° the pale portion congealed, although even at 32° the yellow portion did not solidify. Heated up to 100° the yellow fluid appeared to boil, and again produced the bright coloured atmosphere.

By putting the hydrate into a bent tube, afterwards hermetically sealed, I found it easy, after decomposing it by a heat of 100°, to distil the yellow fluid to one end of the tube, and so separate it from the remaining portion. In this way a more complete decomposition of the hydrate was effected, and, when the whole was allowed to cool, neither of the fluids solidified at temperatures above 34°, and the yellow portion not even at 0°. When the two were mixed together they gradually combined at temperatures below 60°, and formed the same solid substance as that first introduced. If, when the fluids were separated, the tube was cut in the middle, the parts flew asunder as if with an explosion, the whole of the yellow portion disappeared, and there was a powerful atmosphere of chlorine produced; the pale portion on the contrary remained, and when examined, proved to be a weak solution of chlorine in water, with a little muriatic acid, probably from the impurity of the hydrate used. When that end of the tube in which the yellow fluid lay was broken under a jar of water, there was an immediate production of chlorine gas.

I at first thought that muriatic acid and euchlorine had been formed; then, that two new hydrates of chlorine had been produced; but at last I suspected that the chlorine had been entirely separated from the water by the heat,