The Louisiana cotton-boll. [volume] (Vermilionville [i.e. Lafayette], Attakapas, La.) 1872-1883, 1878-02-20
ALL GASES

ALI GASES L1QUEF1ED.
An important Discovery lust Announced.
We have before expressed the belief
that the last half of the present century
will always be accounted among the
great eras of scientific discovery. There
are so many wonderful results of recent
research that it is difficult to enumerate
even the most prominent ones. Among
them are the invention Of the spectre
scope, with the discoveries reaching from
earth to inconceivably distant fixed stars.
which have followed in its train the
determination of the laws of the correla-
ton of forces and the conservation of
energy, which succeeded the discovery
that heat is only q mode of motion, and
created new conceptions of the whole
universe as to its past, present and flu
ture; the preparation of the %aniIine COL
ors, which has furnished an infinite num-
Der of iridiscent and varying hues; the
composition, from lifeless elements, of
many organic substances, by which false
notions about vital force (Which had been
accounted half ~miraculous) have been
overthrown; the discovery of the sateI-
lites of Mars, which round out
and nearly complete the picture
of the solar system; the invention
of the telephone and the monograph,
which enables us on the one hand
to transmit voices TO great
distances, OF on the other, to pre-
serve our utterances for indefinite periods,
SO that the speech Of to-day may be set
aside and heard again at any time in the
future.
To this wonderful record a new chap
ter is now to be added. Within a very
few weeks, two European investigators
have succeeded in condensing to a liquid
from all the gases that had hitherto defed
such effort. In the early part OF this
century, when certain gases were lique-
fed by Faraday and other experimenters.
the facts excited general interest, as
giving q clue to the real constitution of
matter. The new experiments were
widely tried, and in performing them at
Paris, in a public lecture, an explosion
occurred which killed one Of the opera.
ting assistants. Then, for more than
half a century, discovery in this line was
almost suspended. Several gases, such
az ~nitricoxide, acetylene, nitrogen oxygen
and hydrogen, absolutely withstood all
attempts, Within a few weeks the com
pound gases named, aud some others,
have been liquefed. Next, oxygen
yielded to pressure and coId--an event
sufficient Importance to be telegraphed
BY Professor Tyndall to the London
Times, and to be announced at scientific
centers all over the world. Now comes
the announcement that the remaining
gases have undergone a similar treat
ment, and are liquefed--nitrogen under
a pressure of two hundred a~trnospheres
hydrogen under two hundred and eighty.
The latter gas was only reduced to an
mist, but the air which we ordi-
Marty breathe was converted into d LIQUID
and poured out-in a fine stream. The
cold required for these experiments H.
almost uncomfortable. It is estimated at
three hundred degrees below zero of the
thermometer, equivalent to
more than five hundred degrees below.
scale.
The discoveries who have achieved
results-M. Cailletet, of Paris. and
M Pictet, Of Geneva-will receive due
honor from their scientific brethren. II
remains to be shown what the discoveries
leach. The degree of cold that was re-
Iuired in ~condensing common air, though
remarkable, is not greater than is esti-
for the void of space through
which the planets are travelling: that
'xtends infinitely between and PERHAPS
l.
the stars. 1t was the low tenn.
'erature-not the great pressure-which
ia 1efed the gases; they took the LIQUID
orm while escaping from pressure, andin
he act Of escaping the extreme cold was
ttained. Il follows that, il the cold of
pace, unwarmed by the sun, an atmos.
here like that Of our globe would freeze
into s liquid, and then into q aolid
lass, becoming at last a mere rock as
ard as granite. We can now better an.
reeiate tbs vast changes which comets
ndergo ia passing from the frozen CON.
of u solar system to so close a J
eighborhood of the sun that they are re-. !
uced to a vapor. Knowing low, as we {
0 with certainty, the extremes OF form '
J which all matter Is liable, We NAV {
irey predict that the future of our !
.obe simply depends upon the amount
heat received by It's surface. IF Che I
vat diminishes, all earth and air will ha !,
lent stone without the breath of fEa !
aon it; IT the heat increases, the whole o
orld will meit in thin air.-TN. Y. /
Iihune. :