I have chosen orthotoluidine as the liquid, and by placing the ends of the vertical tubes under water—which at the temperature of the room is slightly less dense than orthotoluidine—I am able to form much larger drops than would be possible in air. You now see a small and a large drop projected on the screen; and I now open the cross-tap, so that they may communicate. Notice how the little drop shrinks until it forms merely a slightly-curved prominence at the end of its tube. It attains a position of rest when the curvature of this prominence is equal to that of the now enlarged drop which has swallowed up the contents of the smaller one. So far the result is identical with that obtained with soap-bubbles; but we can extend the experiment in such a way as to reverse the process, and make the little drop absorb the big one. In order to do this I fasten an extension to one of the tubes, and form a small drop deep down in the water, and a larger one on the unextended branch near the top. When I open the communicating top, the system becomes a kind of siphon, the orthotoluidine tending to flow out of the end of the longer tube. The tendency of the large drop to siphon over is opposed by the superior pressure exerted by the skin of the smaller drop; but the former now prevails, and the big drop gradually shrinks and the little one is observed to grow larger. It is possible by regulating the depth at which the smaller drop is placed, to balance the two tendencies, so that the superior pressure due to the lesser drop is equalled by the extra downward pressure [pg 47] due to the greater length of the column of which it forms the terminus. Both pressures are numerically very small, but are still of sufficient magnitude to cause a flow of liquid in one or other direction when not exactly in equilibrium. In the case of communicating soap-bubbles, containing air and surrounded by air, locating the small bubble at a lower level would not reverse the direction of flow, which we succeeded in accomplishing with liquid drops formed in a medium of slightly inferior density.
Fig. 33.—Combined drops of vapour and liquid.
Combined Vapour and Liquid Drops.—All liquids when heated give off vapour, the amount increasing as the temperature rises. The vapour formed in the lower part of the vessel in which the liquid is heated rises in the form of bubbles, which may condense again if the upper part of the liquid be cold. When the liquid becomes hot throughout, however, the vapour bubbles reach the surface and break, allowing the contents to escape into the air above. Everyone who has watched a liquid boiling will be familiar with this process, but it should be remembered that a liquid may give off large quantities of vapour without actually boiling. A dish of cold water, if exposed to the air, will gradually evaporate away; whilst other liquids, such as petrol and alcohol, will disappear rapidly under the same circumstances—and hence are called “volatile” liquids.
The formation of vapour and its subsequent escape at the surface of the liquid, enable us to produce a very novel kind of drop; if, instead of allowing the bubbles to escape into air, we cause them to enter a second liquid. Here, for example, is a coloured layer [pg 48] of chloroform[1] at the bottom of a beaker, with a column of water above. I project the image of the beaker on the screen, and then heat it below. The chloroform vapour escapes in bubbles; but notice that each bubble carries with it a quantity of liquid, torn off, as it were, at the moment of separation. The vapour bubbles and their liquid appendages vary in size, but some of them, you observe, have an average density about equal to that of the water, and float about like weighted balloons. Some rise nearly to the surface, where the water is coldest; and then the vapour partially condenses, with the result that its lifting power is diminished, and hence the drops sink into the lower part of the beaker. But the water is warmer in this region, and consequently the vapour bubble increases in size and lifting power until again able to lift its load to the surface. So the composite drops go up and down, until finally they reach the surface, when the vapour passes into the air, and the suspended liquid falls back to the mass at the bottom of the beaker. Notice that the drop of liquid attached to each bubble is elongated vertically. This is because chloroform is a much denser liquid than water ([Fig. 33]). There is a practical lesson to be drawn from this experiment. Whenever a bubble of vapour breaks through the surface of a liquid, it tends to carry with it some of the liquid, which is dragged mechanically into the space above. In our experiment the space was occupied by water, which enabled the bubble to detach [pg 49] a much greater weight than would be possible if the surface of escape had been covered by air, which is far less buoyant than water. But even when the bubbles escape into air, tiny quantities of liquid are detached; so that steam from boiling water, for example, is never entirely free from liquid. All users of steam are well acquainted with this fact.
Condensation of Drops from Vapour,—Mists, Fogs and Raindrops.—The atmosphere is the great laboratory for the manufacture of drops. It is continually receiving water in the form of vapour from the surface of the sea, from lakes, from running water, and even from snow and ice. All this vapour is ultimately turned into drops, and returned again to [pg 50] the surface, and to this never-ceasing exchange all the phenomena connected with the precipitation of moisture are due. The atmosphere is only capable of holding a certain quantity of water in the form of vapour, and the lower the temperature the less the capacity for invisible moisture. When fully charged, the atmosphere is said to be “saturated”—a condition realized on the small scale by air in a corked bottle containing some water, which evaporates until the air can hold no more. The maximum weight of vapour that can be held by 1 cubic metre of air at different temperatures is shown in the table:—
Temperature. | Weight of water vapour(grammes) required to saturate1 cubic metre. | |
|---|---|---|
Deg. C. | Deg. F. | |
0 | 32 | 4·8 |
5 | 41 | 6·8 |
10 | 50 | 9·3 |
15 | 59 | 12·7 |
20 | 68 | 17·1 |
25 | 77 | 22·8 |
30 | 86 | 30·0 |
35 | 95 | 39·2 |
40 | 104 | 50·6 |
It will be seen from the table that air on a warm day in summer, with a temperature of 77° F., can hold nearly five times as much moisture as air at the freezing point, or 32° F. The amount actually present, however, is usually below the maximum, and is recorded [pg 51] for meteorological purposes as a percentage of the maximum. Thus if the “relative humidity” at 77° F. were 70 per cent., it would imply that the weight of moisture in 1 cubic metre was 70 per cent. of 22·8 grammes; that is, nearly 16 grammes. If 1 cubic metre of air at 77° F., containing 16 grammes of moisture, were cooled to 50° F., a quantity of water equal to (16-9·3) = 6·7 grammes would separate out, as the maximum content at the lower temperature is 9·3 grammes. Precipitation would commence at 66° F., at which temperature 1 cubic metre is saturated by 16 grammes. And similarly for all states of the atmosphere with respect to moisture, cooling to a sufficient extent causes deposition of water to commence immediately below the saturation temperature, and the colder the air becomes afterwards the greater the amount which settles out. The temperature at which deposition commences is called the “dew point.”
Whenever atmospheric moisture assumes the liquid form, drops are invariably formed. These may vary in size, from the tiny spheres which form a mist to the large raindrops which accompany a thunderstorm. But in every instance it is necessary that the air shall be cooled below its saturation point before the separation can commence; and keeping this fact in mind we can now proceed to demonstrate the production of mists and fogs. Here is a large flask containing some water, fitted with a cork through which is passed a glass tube provided with a tap. I pump some air into it with a bicycle pump, and then close the tap. As excess of water is present, the enclosed air will be saturated. Now a compressed gas, on expanding into [pg 52] the atmosphere, does work, and is therefore cooled; and consequently if I open the tap the air in the flask will be cooled, and as it was already saturated the result of cooling will be to cause some of the moisture to liquefy. Accordingly, when I open the tap, the interior of the flask immediately becomes filled with mist. If we examine the mist in a strong light by the aid of a magnifying glass, we observe that it consists of myriads of tiny spheres of water, which float in the air, and only subside very gradually, owing to the friction between their surfaces and the surrounding air preventing a rapid fall. The smaller the sphere, the greater the area of surface in proportion to mass, and therefore the slower its fall. And so in nature, the mists are formed by the cooling of the atmosphere by contact with the surface, until, after the saturation point is reached, the surplus moisture settles out in the form of tiny spheres, which float near the surface, and are dissipated when the sun warms up the ground and the misty air, and thus enables the water again to be held as vapour.
Fogs, like mists, are composed of small spheres of water condensed from the atmosphere by cooling; but in these unwelcome visitors the region of cooling extends to a higher level, and the lowering of temperature is due to other causes than contact with the cold surface of the earth. In our populous cities, the density of the fogs is accentuated by the presence of large quantities of solid particles in the atmosphere, which arise from the smoke from coal fires, and the abrasion of the roads by traffic. We can make a city fog in our flask. I blow in some tobacco smoke, and [pg 53] then pump in air as before. You will notice that the smoke, which is now disseminated through the air in the flask, is scarcely visible; but now, on opening the tap, the interior becomes much darker than was the case in our previous experiment. We have produced a genuine yellow fog, that is, a dense mist coloured by smoke. When we have learned how to abolish smoke, and how to prevent dust arising from the streets, our worst fogs will be reduced to dense mists, such as are now met with on the sea or on land remote from large centres of habitation.