It is a new state, the gaso-liquid state. An
experiment of Cagniard-Latour re-enforced this explanation of the
phenomena. Heating ether in closed vessels to high temperatures, he
brought it to a point where the liquid could be made wholly to disappear,
or to be suddenly reformed on the slightest elevation or the slightest
depression of temperature accordingly as it was raised just above or
cooled to just below the critical point. The discovery of these properties
suggested an explanation of the failure of previous attempts to liquefy
air. Air at ordinary low temperatures is in the gaso-liquid condition, and
its liquefaction is not possible except when a difference exists between
the density of the vapor and that of the liquid greater than it is
possible to produce under any conditions that can exist then. It was
necessary to reduce the temperature to below the critical point; and it
was by adopting this course that MM. Cailletet and Raoul Pictet achieved
their success. The rapid escape of the compressed gas itself from a
condition of great condensation at an extremely low temperature was
employed as the agent for producing a greater degree of cold than it had
been possible before to obtain. M. Cailletet used oxygen escaping at -29 deg.
C. from a pressure of three hundred atmospheres; M. Raoul Pictet, the same
gas escaping at -140 deg. from a pressure of three hundred and twenty
atmospheres; and both obtained oxygen and nitrogen, and M.
Pages:
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73