In 1845 the late Professor Faraday delivered a lecture on the solidification of gases at the Royal Institution, and demonstrated his facts by experiments as interesting as they were successful. Under his skilful manipulation a tube filled with olefiant gas, quite invisible, was seen to become partially filled with a colourless liquid, which was the gas in a condensed form. Two conditions were shewn to be essential to the result–extreme pressure, and extreme cold. The pressure was obtained by strong mechanical appliances, and the cold by means of solidified carbonic acid, which looked like lumps of snow. In this way the lecturer made clear to a general audience the process by which a number of gases had been brought into a liquid or solid form; and he stated that he had ‘hoped to make oxygen the subject of the evening’s experiment, but from some undetected cause it had baffled his attempts at solidification.’ Nevertheless, he looked forward to the time when not only oxygen, but azote and hydrogen would be solidified, and he agreed with Dumas, of the Institute of France, that hydrogen would shew itself in the form of a metal.
Faraday’s anticipation is now realised in one particular, for oxygen has been liquefied. This achievement is due to the enlightened and persevering efforts of Mr Pictet, an able physicist of Geneva. Working with apparatus capable of resisting a pressure of eight hundred atmospheres, and a temperature sixty-five degrees below zero (centigrade), he succeeded in converting oxygen (invisible) into a visible liquid which spouted from the tube in which it had been inclosed for experiment. It is a feat which involves important consequences for science. It is a further confirmation of the mechanical theory of heat, according to which all gases are vapours capable of passing through the three states–solid, liquid, and gaseous. Geneva winds up the year with a fine scientific triumph. Will Albemarle Street supplement it by liquefying or solidifying azote and hydrogen? Just as these lines are going to press we hear a rumour that it has been done by a Frenchman at Paris.
Experiments have been made to measure the sound-impulse produced in a telephone by ordinary speaking; but it is too feeble to excite even a delicate galvanometer. But a slight swing of the free end of the instrument affects the needle, which moves in a different direction according as the swing is south, north, west, or east. There is no doubt, as we observed in a recent paper on the subject, that in the behaviour of the telephone and the phenomena of its currents scientific men have a promising subject of inquiry. Meanwhile, as explained at the end of this article, the notion that it would at once supersede other forms of telegraphy or telephony will abate. A telephone has no advantage over a speaking-tube within the distances where a tube is available. Moreover the needlessly high price at which it is to be sold will be an effectual bar to its general use. To ask thirty-five pounds and twenty-five pounds for an article that could be sold at a profit for so many shillings, is not and ought not to be the way to commercial success.
It is stated in a French scientific periodical that underground water may be discovered by observing the quivering of the air on a clear calm summer afternoon when the sun is low. If a well be dug at the spot where the quivering appears, a supply of water will, as is said, there be found. And as regards the influence of trees on moisture, careful observation has confirmed the theory that more rain falls on forests than on open plains; and comparing different kinds of trees it is found that the pine tribe get more water and retain more than leafy trees. Hence, it is said, pines are the best defence against sudden inundations, and the best means for giving freshness and humidity to a hot and dry climate such as that of Algeria, where attempts at amelioration have been made by planting, and by the digging of artesian wells.
Readers of this Journal will not be ignorant of the health-imparting properties of the Australian gum-tree, or eucalyptus, nor that the fir and pine possess similar properties, but in a minor degree, yet still sufficient to enhance the title to salubrity of certain watering-places. Mr Kingzett, an ingenious and persevering chemist, had tried for a long time to discover whether the active atmospheric element, ozone, was evolved from the leaves of plants, and was forced to the conclusion that the element produced was not ozone, but peroxide of hydrogen. He then experimented on oils of different kinds, and found that they absorbed oxygen rapidly, and were thereby in some instances transformed into new substances. Among them all turpentine proved to be the best absorber; and it appeared on further experiment that while one portion became resinified, another portion was converted into peroxide of hydrogen and camphoric acid. The natural conclusion from this result was that the eucalyptus and the pine owe their salubrious properties to the presence of these two substances; or rather to the ‘terpene,’ or principle of turpentine, with which they are imbued. This point established, measures were taken to produce the sanifying substances on a large scale; and now a company owning a manufactory in the east of London advertise that they are ready to supply the new disinfectant under the name of Sanitas in any quantity. It is not poisonous, will not stain the materials to which it may be applied, can be used as a wholesome scent, and is efficacious in preserving articles of food. The process of manufacture is ingenious, and is so combined that there is no waste of turpentine even in the form of vapour; but of the details we need not attempt an explanation here. Suffice it that Sanitas, with full description of its virtues, is now largely advertised in the public journals.
Professor Galloway, of the Royal College of Science, Dublin, has published a pamphlet in which he states that salted meat is unwholesome, and produces scurvy, because by the process of salting the meat is deprived of important constituents, notably phosphate of potash. He says that if this salt were eaten with the beef served out on board ship, the meat would be nutritious, would not occasion scurvy; and he calls on the Admiralty to test his view by actual experiment.
What a convenience it would be if all the street lamps of a town could be lighted and put out at once! Mr Lane Fox has proved at a commercial station in the neighbourhood of Fulham that it can be done. All the lamps are connected by wires overhead or underground; to each burner is fitted an electro-magnet composed of a coil of wire round a soft iron core, and above it hangs a movable magnet. The ends of the connecting wires are attached to or detached from a battery at pleasure. When the gas is to be lighted, a current is sent through the wires; the electro-magnet on each burner is excited; the movable magnet swings round, and turns on the gas; a current from a powerful coil is then sent through the wires, and produces a spark at each burner, and thereby lights the gas. The putting out is effected by a reverse current. From twenty to forty lamps have been thus treated, and with entire success; and it is thought that three hundred might be included in the circuit with a like satisfactory result.
Thus in order to light up London or any other large town, the lamps would have to be divided into groups of three hundred. The lamplighter, or man in charge of the battery, would of course require to know that none had been missed, and this could be made certain by placing the first and last lamp of the group within sight of his station. If they are alight, then all are alight. The practicability of the operation appears therefore to be settled. The next question is–Will it prove a saving to the ratepayers?
Complaints that ordinary gas-light is not so brilliant as it ought to be, are often heard, and not without reason. The Pure Carbon Gas Company claim for their gas that it is not open to the objections urged against other gas. The process of manufacture has the merit of being very simple, and free from the usual noxious results. At a demonstration made a few weeks since, proof was given that but little space and little skill are required in the manufacture. The tar formed during the process, instead of being carried away as at present, is passed back into the retorts, whereby, as is said, three thousand feet more of gas can be produced from a ton of coal than by the ordinary process. An arrangement is introduced which separates the ammonia and the sulphur, and in consequence this pure carbon gas has but little smell. Ordinary gas is passed as good if it contains not more than twenty-five grains of sulphur to the hundred feet: the quantity in the new gas is less than three grains. We are told that the cost of manufacture is not more than eighteenpence the thousand cubic feet, that it does not require skilled labour, that in consequence of its freedom from smell it could be carried on in a ship or in a house, while its simplicity renders it applicable to villages where at present there are no public lights. The Collinge Engineering Works, Westminster Bridge Road, are mentioned as the place where the demonstration above described was given.
With a view to account for the presence of mineral oil underground in certain parts of Europe and in Pennsylvania, some ingenious persons have assumed that the oil is a decomposition-product of long-buried organic remains. But the answer to this is that the oil is found in very old strata ‘where but few organic remains can have existed.’ Mr D. Mendelejeff, a foreign chemist, having visited the Pennsylvania wells, puts forward his opinion on this interesting question: The substance of the earth having been condensed from vapour, ‘the interior of the earth must consist largely of metals (iron predominating) in combination with carbon. Wherever fissures have been produced in the earth’s crust by volcanic action, the water, which of necessity made its way into the interior, and thus came into contact with metallic carbides at high temperatures and pressures, must have given rise to saturated hydrocarbons, which have ascended in the form of vapour to strata where they condensed,’ and thus formed the oil.