Hr. Graham's Experiments with Hydrogen. At the February meeting of the Royal Institution in Lon don Dr. Codling delivered a lecture upon the new discoveries made by Mr. Graham F. R. S. respecting the properties of hydrogen tending to prove that hydrogen is a metal having a boiling point much below the temperature of the air. The lecturer took a tube closed at one end with a single thickness of well-moistened calic and showed that when the tube was half filled with water and its lower end just dipped below the surface of some water in a glass vessel the water in the tube would not run out
Hr. Graham's Experiments with Hydrogen. At the February meeting of the Royal Institution in Lon don Dr. Codling delivered a lecture upon the new discoveries made by Mr. Graham F. R. S. respecting the properties of hydrogen tending to prove that hydrogen is a metal having a boiling point much below the temperature of the air. The lecturer took a tube closed at one end with a single thickness of well-moistened calic and showed that when the tube was half filled with water and its lower end just dipped below the surface of some water in a glass vessel the water in the tube would not run out because the wet calico was practically speaking air-tight. Air could only enter the tube by dissolv ing in the water upon the cali c and then evaporating on the other side—a very slow opera tion. Ammonia being a gas much more soluble in water than common aira jar of it was inverted over the wet calico ; it was quickly dissolved in the water and evaporated on the other side so as to push down the column of water in the tube. In the same way gases are believed to pass through in dia-rubber and colloid septa by first dissolving in the material of the diaphragm then passing through it as a condensed vola tile liquid and finally evapo rating on the other side. M. Devine a French diem ist proved that hydrogen gas would pass through red hot solid platinum. Mr. Graham took up the discovery of M. Deville and by other experiments made gained fresh information respecting these phenomena. He showed that platinum absorbed a certain quantity of hy drogen before the transmission began as is the case with in dia-rubber. Next he tried palladium and discovered that this metal will absorb or occlude about 1000 times its own volume of hydrogen gas the greatest amount taken up in the actual experiments being 980 times the bulk of the palladium. One volume of water will dissolve 800 times its vol ume of ammonia the water being then in creased in bulk by one half—that is to saythat two centimeters of
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