Part 14

For the purpose of testing our conclusion regarding the influence of the gum, I take two powders presenting the same physical appearance; one of them is a compound of mercury, and the other a compound of lead. On two surfaces of a cube are spread these bright red powders, without varnish of any kind. Filling the cube with boiling water, and determining the radiation from the two surfaces, one of them is found to emit thirty-nine units of heat, while the other emits seventy-four. This, surely, is a great difference. Here, however, is a second cube, having two of its surfaces coated with the same powders, the only difference being that the powders are laid on by means of a transparent gum. Both surfaces are now absolutely alike in radiative power. Both of them emit somewhat more than was emitted by either of the unvarnished powders, simply because the gum employed is a better radiator than either of them. Excluding all varnish, and comparing white with white, vast differences are found; comparing black with black, they are also different; and when black and white are compared, in some cases the black radiates far more than the white, while in other cases the white radiates far more than the black. Determining, moreover, the absorptive power of those powders, it is found to go hand-in-hand with their radiative power. The good radiator is a good absorber, and the bad radiator is a bad absorber. From all this it is evident that as regards the radiation and absorption of non-luminous heat, colour teaches us nothing; and that even as regards the radiation of the sun, consisting as it does mainly of non-luminous rays, conclusions as to the influence of colour may be altogether delusive. This is the strict scientific upshot of our researches. But it is not the less true that in the case of wearing apparel--and this for reasons which I have given in analysing the experiments of Franklin--black dresses are more potent than white ones as absorbers of solar heat.

Thus, in brief outline, have been brought before you a few of the results of recent enquiry. If you ask me what is the use of them, I can hardly answer you, unless you define the term use. If you meant to ask whether those dark rays which clear away the Alpine snows, will ever be applied to the roasting of turkeys, or the driving of steam-engines--while affirming their power to do both, I would frankly confess that they are not at present capable of competing profitably with coal in these particulars. Still they may have great uses unknown to me; and when our coal-fields are exhausted, it is possible that a more aethereal race than we are may cook their victuals, and perform their work, in this transcendental way. But is it necessary that the student of science should have his labours tested by their possible practical applications? What is the practical value of Homer's Iliad? You smile, and possibly think that Homer's Iliad is good as a means of culture. There's the rub. The people who demand of science practical uses, forget, or do not know, that it also is great as a means of culture--that the knowledge of this wonderful universe is a thing profitable in itself, and requiring no practical application to justify its pursuit.

But while the student of Nature distinctly refuses to have his labours judged by their practical issues, unless the term practical be made to include mental as well as material good, he knows full well that the greatest practical triumphs have been episodes in the search after pure natural truth. The electric telegraph is the standing wonder of this age, and the men whose scientific knowledge, and mechanical skill, have made the telegraph what it is, are deserving of all honour. In fact, they have had their reward, both in reputation and in those more substantial benefits which the direct service of the public always carries in its train. But who, I would ask, put the soul into this telegraphic body? Who snatched from heaven the fire that flashes along the line? This, I am bound to say, was done by two men, the one a dweller in Italy, [Footnote: Volta] the other a dweller in England, [Footnote: Faraday] who never in their enquiries consciously set a practical object before them--whose only stimulus was the fascination which draws the climber to a never-trodden peak, and would have made Caesar quit his victories for the sources of the Nile. That the knowledge brought to us by those prophets, priests, and kings of science is what the world calls 'useful knowledge,' the triumphant application of their discoveries proves. But science has another function to fulfil, in the storing and the training of the human mind; and I would base my appeal to you on the specimen which has this evening been brought before you, whether any system of education at the present day can be deemed even approximately complete, in which the knowledge of Nature is neglected or ignored.

********************

IV. NEW CHEMICAL REACTIONS PRODUCED BY LIGHT.

1868-69.

1 DECOMPOSITION BY LIGHT.

MEASURED by their power, not to excite vision, but to produce heat--in other words, measured by their absolute energy--the ultra-red waves of the sun and of the electric light, as shown in the preceding articles, far transcend the visible. In the domain of chemistry, however, there are numerous cases in which the more powerful waves are ineffectual, while the more minute waves, through what may be called their timeliness of application, are able to produce great effects. A series of these, of a novel and beautiful character, discovered in 1868, and further illustrated in subsequent years, may be exhibited by subjecting the vapours of volatile liquids to the action of concentrated sunlight, or to the concentrated beam of the electric light. Their investigation led up to the discourse on 'Dust and Disease' which follows in this volume; and for this reason some account of them is introduced here.

*****

A glass tube 3 feet long and 3 inches wide, which had been frequently employed in my researches on radiant heat, was supported horizontally on two stands. At one end of the tube was placed an electric lamp, the height and position of both being so arranged, that the axis of the tube, and that of the beam issuing from the lamp, were coincident. In the first experiments the two ends of the tube were closed by plates of rock-salt, and subsequently by plates of glass. For the sake of distinction, I call this tube the experimental tube. It was connected with an air-pump, and also with a series of drying and other tubes used for the purification of the air.

A number of test-tubes, like F, fig. 2 (I have used at least fifty of them), were converted into Woulf's flasks. Each of them was stopped by a cork, through which passed two glass tubes: one of these tubes (a) ended immediately below the cork, while the other (b) descended to the bottom of the flask, being drawn out at its lower end to an orifice about 0.03 of an inch in diameter. It was found necessary to coat the cork carefully with cement. In the later experiments corks of vulcanised India-rubber were invariably employed.

The little flask, thus formed, being partially filled with the liquid whose vapour was to be examined, was introduced into the path of the purified current of air. The experimental tube being exhausted, and the cock which cut off the supply of purified air being cautiously turned on, the air entered the flask through the tube b, and escaped by the small orifice at the lower end of b into the liquid. Through this it bubbled, loading itself with vapour, after which the mixed air and vapour, passing from the flask by the tube a, entered the experimental tube, where they were subjected to the action of light.

The whole arrangement is shown in fig. 3, where L represents the electric lamp, ss' the experimental tube, pp' the pipe leading to the air-pump, and F the test-tube containing the volatile liquid. The tube tt' is plugged with cotton-wool intended to intercept the floating matter of the air; the bent tube T' contains caustic potash, the tube T sulphuric acid, the one intended to remove the carbonic acid and the other the aqueous vapour of the air.

The power of the electric beam to reveal the existence of anything within the experimental tube, or the impurities of the tube itself, is extraordinary. When the experiments is made in a darkened room, a tube which in ordinary daylight appears absolutely clean, is often shown by the present mode of examination to be exceedingly filthy.

The following are some of the results obtained with this arrangement:

Nitrite of amyl. The vapour of this liquid was in the first instance permitted to enter the experimental tube, while the beam from the electric lamp was passing through it. Curious clouds, the cause of which was then unknown, were observed to form near the place of entry, being afterwards whirled through the tube.

The tube being again exhausted, the mixed air and vapour were allowed to enter it in the dark. The slightly convergent beam of the electric light was then sent through the mixture. For a moment the tube was optically empty, nothing whatever being seen within it; but before a second had elapsed a shower of particles was precipitated on the beam. The cloud thus generated became denser as the light continued to act, slowing at some places vivid iridescence.

The lens of the electric lamp was now placed so as to form within the tube a strongly convergent cone of rays. The tube was cleansed and again filled in darkness. When the light was sent through it, the precipitation upon the beam was so rapid and intense that the cone, which a moment before was invisible, flashed suddenly forth like a solid luminous spear. The effect was the same when the air and vapour were allowed to enter the tube in diffuse daylight. The cloud, however, which shone with such extraordinary radiance under the electric beam, was invisible in the ordinary light of the laboratory.

The quantity of mixed air and vapour within the experimental tube could of course be regulated at pleasure. The rapidity of the action diminished with the attenuation of the vapour. When, for example, the mercurial column associated with the experimental tube was depressed only five inches, the action was not nearly so rapid as when the tube was full. In such cases, however, it was exceedingly interesting to observe, after some seconds of waiting, a thin streamer of delicate bluish-white cloud slowly forming along the axis of the tube, and finally swelling so as to fill it.

Fig. 2.

Fig. 3.

When dry oxygen was employed to carry in the vapour the effect was the same as that obtained with air.

When dry hydrogen was used as a vehicle, the effect was also the same.

The effect, therefore, is not due to any interaction between the vapour of the nitrite and its vehicle.

This was further demonstrated by the deportment of the vapour itself. When it was permitted to enter the experimental tube unmixed with air or any other gas, the effect was substantially the same. Hence the seat of the observed action is the vapour.

This action is not to be ascribed to heat. As regards the glass of the experimental tube, and the air within the tube, the beam employed in these experiments was perfectly cold. It had been sifted by passing it through a solution of alum, and through the thick double-convex lens of the lamp. When the unsifted beam of the lamp was employed, the effect was still the same; the obscure calorific rays did not appear to interfere with the result.

My object here being simply to point out to chemists a method of experiments which reveals a new and beautiful series of reactions, I left to them the examination of the products of decomposition. The group of atoms forming the molecule of nitrite of amyl is obviously shaken asunder by certain specific waves of the electric beam, nitric oxide and other products, of which the nitrate of amyl is probably one, being the result of the decomposition. The brown fumes of nitrous acid were seen mingling with the cloud within the experimental tube. The nitrate of amyl, being less volatile than the nitrite, and not being able to maintain itself in the condition of vapour, would be precipitated as a visible cloud along the track of the beam.

In the anterior portions of the tube a powerful sifting of the beam by the vapour occurs, which diminishes the chemical action in the posterior portions. In some experiments the precipitated cloud only extended halfway down the tube. When, under these circumstances, the lamp was shifted so as to send the beam through the other end of the tube, copious precipitation occurred there also.