The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1899-03-01

into a glass containing some pure aicohoi.
This he stirs up with glass rod. The
alcohol boils vigorously, and in few
minutes freezes until it resembles wet
snow, and if the string is continued the
! frozen alcohol can be lifted out Of the
! glass as a hard icicle.
! To the human sense of touch temper
ature Of 312 degrees below zero is most ex-
! traordinary. A few drops held in my hand
! for an instant felt exactly like a red-hot
coal. It does not really burn, of course,
| but it kills, leaving little red blister
not unlike a burn. For this reason, one
of it's prospective uses will be for the pur-
| pose of cauteriZatiOn in surgical cases.
It is not only a good deal cheaper that
! the ordinary cauStiCs, but is much more
efficient, and its action can be absolutely
! controlled. Indeed. a well-known surgeon
has already performed a difficult opera
! ton on a cancer case with liquid air. The
! egg was frozen until it was as hard as a
bit of quartz, and when l struck 1t with
d hammer, it cracked open, and the inside
was sharply crystalized. The beefsteak,
when frozen, was as stiff and brittle as
glass. Mr.. Tripler crumbled it up in his
hands like so much cracker, and a peice
of ii dropped on the floor shivered into a
thousand pieces.
Liquid air freezes iron and steel just
as readily as 1T freezes beefsteak. Mr.,
Tripler accdently dropped one of the tin
cups in which he had been ladling out
liquid air, and it at once shivered like so
much glass. 1t has, however, an exactly
opposite effect on copper, gold, and other
precious metals, all of which it rendens
tougher instead of more brittle. Mercury
is frozen into a hard blokk. Mr.. Tripler
makes a little pasteboard box the size and
shape of a hammer head fills it with
mercury suspends an iron tube in it as
a handle, and sets it down in a pan con-
tanning liquid air. In a few moments it
is frozen hard so that it can be lifted out
and used for driving a nail into a hard
wood block
Mr.. Tripler shows the terrific expansive
power Of liquid air by placing a little
of 1t in the bottom of a copper jar, in the
mouth of which he inserts cork perfor-
ated by four glass tubes. The copper
jar is then placed in a pail of ordinary
water, the heat of which causes the liquid
air to expand instantly and blow upwards
through the tubes a perfect geyser Of fine
vapor, like the exhaust of a steam engine
1t is curious thing to see liquid air
placed in a teapot, boiling vigorously, on
block Of ice. but it must be remembered
that ice is as much warmer than LIQUID
air boil just as the stove makes water
boil. If this same teapot is placed over a
gas flame. thick coating OF ice yin at
once collect on the bottom between the
kettle and the blaze. and no amount Of
heat seems enough to melt it.
When the liquid nitrogen boil away from
liquid air it leaves behind almost pure
liquid oxygen. Liquid oxygen rs most
marvellous substance in the production Of
rapid combustion. Mr.. Tripler places
little liquid oxygen in tumbler made of
ice, and then thrusts into it a steel spring
having at the end of a lighted match. The
moment the steel strikes the oxygen it
burns like a splinter Of fat pine This ex-
pertinent shows most astonishing range
of temperature. Here is steel burning at
$500 above zero in an ice receptacle con-
tanning liquid air at 312 degrees below ze-
TO. In the same way. if liquid air is thrown
on wooden felt, which under ordinary cir
cumstances will not burn at all, it causes
the felt, when ignited, to explode and burn
at all Observation-Disclosures shrdeta hshrd
with all the violence of gun-cotten. From
the last named experiment Mr.. Tripler in
dicates the use to which liquid air may be
put IN making explosives.
The tremendous expansive power of
liuid air, which is about one hundred times
that Of steam, gives a convincing idea Of
the wonderful uses to which the substance
may be placed for producind power for
running all kinds of machinery Moreover.
liquid air boils and produces expansive
vapOr at the ordinary temperature of the
atmosphere. requiring no coal or other sub
stance for generating heat