This spreading, as it were, of matter through matter assumes a very important function when we come to examine the constitution of the air we breathe, which is chiefly a mechanical mixture of gases: seventy-nine parts by volume or measure of nitrogen gas, twenty-one parts of oxygen gas, and four parts of carbonic acid vapour in every ten thousand parts of air having the following relations as to weight:—
| Specific gravity. | |
| Nitrogen | 972 |
| Oxygen | 1105 |
| Carbonic acid | 1524 |
It might be expected that these gases would arrange themselves in our atmosphere in the above order, and if that were the case, we should have the carbonic-acid gas (a most poisonous one) at the bottom, and touching the earth, then the oxygen, and, last of all, the nitrogen; a state of things in which organized life could not exist. The gases do not, however, separate: indeed, they seem to act as it were like vacuums to one another, and "the diffusion of gases" has become a recognised fact, governed by fixed laws. This fact is curiously illustrated, as shown in our cut, by filling a bottle with carbonic acid, and another with hydrogen; and having previously fitted corks to the bottles, perforated so as to admit a tube, place the bottle containing the carbonic acid on the table, then take the other full of hydrogen, keeping the mouth downwards, and fit in the cork and tube: place this finally into the cork of the carbonic-acid bottle, which may be a little larger than the other, in order to make the arrangement stand firmer; and after leaving them for an hour or so, the carbonic acid, which is twenty-two times heavier than the hydrogen, will ascend to the latter, whilst the hydrogen will descend to the carbonic acid. The presence of the carbonic acid in the hydrogen bottle is easily proved by pouring in a wine-glassful of clear lime-water, which speedily becomes milky, owing to the production of carbonate of lime; whilst the proof of the hydrogen being present in the carbonic acid is established by absorbing the latter with a little cream of lime—i.e., slacked lime mixed to the consistence of cream with some water—and setting fire to the hydrogen that remains, which burns quietly with a yellowish flame if unmixed with air; but if air be admitted to the bottle, the mixture of air and hydrogen inflames rapidly, and with some noise.
Fig. 4.
One of the most elegant modes of showing the diffusion of gases is by taking a large round dry porous cell, such as would be employed in a voltaic battery, and having cemented a brass cap with a glass tube attached to its open extremity, it may then be supported by a small tripod of iron wire, and the end of the glass tube placed in a tumbler containing a small quantity of water coloured blue with sulphate of indigo. If a tolerably large jar containing hydrogen is now placed over the porous cell, bubbles of gas make their escape at the end of the tube, because the hydrogen diffuses itself more rapidly into the porous cell than the air which it already contains passes out. When the jar is removed, the reverse occurs, hydrogen diffuses out of the porous cell, and the blue liquid rises in the tube.
This diffusive force prevents the accumulation of the various noxious gases on the earth, and spreads them rapidly through the great bulk of the atmosphere surrounding the globe.
Fig. 5.
a. The porous cell. b. The jar of hydrogen. c. The brass cap and glass tube d, the end of which dips into the tumbler containing the solution of indigo e. f f. The wire and stand supporting the porous cell and tube in tumbler.