The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-02-18
TESTS WITH LIQUID AIR.
Some Interesting and Remarkable
Results of Chance Experiments.

VI
From the Philadelphia Public Ledger.
"A capful of wind" is an old sailor
phrase but it is likely soon to be relegated
to the obsolete list by a "bucketful Of air.
yes, air in buckets. A milkcanful of
liquid air was brought over from New
York yesterday to Prof. Barker's labora-
tory at the University of Pennsylvania.
and was ladled out, poured out, boiled,
and everything else done with 1t that can
be done with any liquid, except to freeze
it. And yet how cold 1t was! What would
the reader think of 500 degrees below zero?
That was the temperature of this new
fluid and yet it was not frozen. 1t would
boil when a chunk of ice was thrown into
it, because the ice was so warm that it
raised the air to its boiling point. And
what became of the ice? Why, it vas
frozen so hard in this liquid that when hit
with a hammer its brittleness made 1t fly
into very small fragments
All this seems like a fairy tale, but the
nine teenth century is not quite closed yet
and there is room for another revolution
any invention. What could not be done
with condensed air? Not the kind the
Kelly motor is said to be run with
but in a form which does not re-
pure steel cylinders to prevent its
resuming its gaseous state. CULVER
visited a nation where sunbeams were
bottled up after they had been ex-
tracted from cucumbers, but history
does not record that they warmed up sny
stormy days. The uses of this new form
Of the life giving element which STIR
rounds us will, however suggest them
selves to any practical thinker DIR.
Barker did son many thinks with it, and
crowded so many experiments into the
ninety minutes talk which he gave to his
class and the few Visitors his laboratory
would hold, that one could only feel
amazed at the possibilities which the dis
covery has opened up, especially when
told that the cost of the Transformation
brought the product well within the com
mercial limit.
DR.. Barker described the method of pro
ducing this liquid, giving a statement of
the principles upon which the inventor
depended in working out his discovery.
He said the matter was brought 70 his
attention four or five years ago by DIR.
Peters, the archaeologst, who told him
that a Mr.. Charles E. Tripler of New
York was working at it. year ago DR..
Peters told him that the process was a
success, and DR.. Barker has only been
waiting to be invited to Mr.. Tripier' S
laboratory. Yesterday the latterS gen
eral manager, w. Fl. Dickerson, brought
over two and a half gallons of the liquid
in a milk can. 1t was transformed from
the New York atmosphere in the morning,
and got here in about the same condition
as when it left that city. This is the first
public exhibition that has ever been made
of it in the United States and the uniyer-
sitv has the honor of bringing it to the
knowledge of the public.
The principles that lie at the base of this
discovery may be briefly stated. Matter
exists i'm three states, solid, liquid, and
gaseous. dependent upon its temperature
pressure. and consequent volume. Com
press a gas and it becomes denser, but so
long as it remains gas it is not converted
into a LIQUID. If we condense vapor it
becomes a liquid by pressure at given
temperature. DR.. Barker illustrated this
principle by reference to water in a re-
ceiyer exhausted of air. The water evapo-
rates and fills the receiver with Vapor, and
there is then liquid and vapor there in the
presence of each other. If heated the
amount of vapor will increase. The boil
ing point of water is 100 degrees cent?
Grade. If the water is heated to that
noint the pressure of the vapor in that
receiver is just equal to the baromeuic
pressure. If the temperature is raised
above that point the water boils and be-
comes vapor; at that point it remains
liquid.
Applying that principle to air, which Is
already in a gaseous state, imagine a