The Yellowstone journal. [volume] (Miles City, Mont.) 1893-1901, 1893-04-14

Ttc Pail Mall Budget of London pub
iis,'d an interview with Professor Jane
Dewar Oh what is represented rs ba;1l:
"A sreat scientific discovery" that o
making tiiu;d air. Introductory to til,
interview the article SAYS tia Ibis liz
leiartions Of permanent Etses and tlIi
tase If vanla to p~reseryegraaa cold mari
oneof the most irnpa:tast elarecal dis
coyeiles Of the century It Is held b,
scientists that any gas may be liunefet
If the pressure and cold may he olsaine.
and "A vessel Of sufficient strength te
withstand the great pressures.
OF the gases that ma be lilGefied car.
bonic acid gas has beer found to be the
cheapest AMI readiest made. aud while it
has been known for many years that il
could be liquitied it has generally been
so prepared only in small quantities for
scientific uses. The use OF compressed
air us a motive power has presented many
difficulties, the principal one being its
bulklnes>. hence large vessels must be
used in order to get IA sufficient amount
Of motive power. and it is hard to make
these strong enough and at the same time
light in weight.
As a motive power it is used at a pres
sure OF from 600 to 300 pounds, But if
Professor Dewar has discovered an O
nomlcal and ready way of liquefying it,
It will tend to solve Il problem in carry
ing a motive power in storage bulk that
VIII be of great benefit to the students in
this line. In the talk with the represent
alive of the Pail Mall Budget. he w
sXVall l,,,.f %h,,1- tlo..
to say. because I've told all | have to tell
about the matter in my two lectures,
but ] do believe there's a great deal more
to be learned about the subject. You
see. at present we've got these gases down
to 2lO degrees below zero. and the lowest
possible temperature is 214 degrees be-
low Ii we could get some 30 degrees
lower down, we might liquefy hydrogen.
hydrogen has never been liquefied in a
free state yet.
Now. it's s strange thing that air can
be made into a homogeneous fluid. You
would think. as oxygen can be liquetied
1t -ls2 degrees and nitrogen not until
-S92 degrees. that as you made the air
colder and colder the oxygen would be-
cone liquid first and then the nitrogen.
! saw that prediction made in a stand
ard work only the other day. Now. |
dare say. you will ask why the oxygen
don't come down first"
Stepping quickly back to the desk Pro-
fessor Dewar took up IA pencil and began
to draw with rapid strokes Oh the back
OF a letter, The diagram when it was
finished looked more like the law of d.
minishing returns turned up on one side
than anything else that | am acquainted
with. While he drew he rapidly ex-
planned how the influence of atmospheric
pressure on the different volumes of nj
trogen and oxygen in air makes them
Doll almost exactly at the same tempera-
ture. AS he made each point he frowned
a little. drawing mp the wrinkles between
his eyes. Now, that. in the old theo-
days. would nave been taken as
p%rovidential dispensation. The strange
thing is that when liquid air evaporates
again they are under the same pressure,
and the nitrogen goes off first. us you
s ould expect.
Ozone can be liquefied by acting on
he vappr given off from liquid oxygen
~ electricity 1t is a splendid DARK blue
almost as dark as indigo. Ozone
~ not the an molecule as y
md the electricity breaks up three twos
ntO two threas. That is the secret of it.
The queer taing abort liquid ozone is
hat when it goes back into /, IS again it
xplodes. You wouldn't thin.: it, but it
) stronger t..an dynamite ;s an explo-
i've. It's simply because the ozone goes
Jack into the molecular form of oxygen
0 fast. The force that comes from the
lectricity makes it explode without
with any outside body. It's a .
explosive. |
I'VE have discovered that liquid oxy- {
en- acts as q lens. It is SO transparent 9
, heat, so to speak. that even at 1872 I
egrees below zero you can focus heat I
q it from n side and light a piece Of !
aper by it on the other. You know !
rats just what happens in the earth. I
he suns heat gets focused on to the Q
arth through the lens formed by the '
acuum Of space. which is so cold that it $
asnt any temperature at all-absolute- a
zero"
Professor Dewar gave a lecture on
Liquid Air" at the Royal institution in
70 presence of the Prince of Wales, tho !
uke of York, Lord Salisbury and other y
otable persons. He showed that by the .
of heat the air is converted 9
to = liquid with total loss of chemical Q
'operties. incapable of supporting COM y
aston, or of entering into combination q
'en with phosphorus and sodium, while .
physical properties remain. The y !,
of oxygen into ozone was also y
'scribed. and the retention by oxygen y
its peculiar optical properties at the u
west temperature was demonstrated
: the very dense and well defined bands
its spectrum. In ordinary conditions :,
,ygen shows no unreasonable thermal ),
scorpion, but at low temperature its -
ermal~ absorptiye power becomes mani =
st. =.
ThWArtfOW AN ERemv. u