A Dictionary of Chemistry: On the Basis of Mr. Nicholson's, in which the Principles of the Science are Investigated Anew and Its Applications to the Phenomena of Nature, Medicine, Mineralogy, Agriculture, and Manufactures Detailed

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Robert Desilver, 1821 - 14 pages
 

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Page 4 - Since all matter may be made to fill a smaller volume by cooling, it is evident that the particles of matter must have space between them ; and since every body can communicate the power of expansion to a body of a lower temperature, that is, can give an expansive motion to its particles, it is a probable inference that its own particles are possessed of motion ; but as there is no change in the position of its parts, as long as its temperature is uniform, the motion, if it exist, must be a vibratory...
Page 2 - When an instrument of this description has been successfully exhausted, if the ball that is empty be immersed in a freezing mixture of salt and snow, the water in the other ball, though at the distance of two or three feet, will be frozen solid in the course of a very few minutes. The vapour contained in the empty ball is condensed by the common operation of cold, and the vacuum produced by this condensation gives opportunity for a fresh quantity to arise from the opposite ball, with proportional...
Page 15 - Monge has discovered that the pyroligneous acid obtained from the distillation of wood has the property of preventing the decomposition and putrefaction of animal substances. It is sufficient to plunge meat for a few moments into this acid, even slightly empyreumatic, to preserve it as long as you please.
Page 14 - If strong nitrous acid, saturated with nitrous gas, be mixed with a saturated solution of muriatic acid gas, no other effect is produced than might be expected from the action of nitrous acid of the same strength on an equal quantity of water ; and the mixed acid so formed has no power of action on gold or platina. Again, if muriatic acid gas, and nitrous gas, in equal volumes, be mixed together over mercury, and...
Page 4 - Temperature may be conceived to depend upon the velocities of the vibrations; increase of capacity on the motion being performed in greater space ; and the diminution of temperature during the conversion of solids into fluids or gases, may be explained on the idea of the loss of vibratory motion, in consequence of the revolution of particles round their axes, at the moment when the body becomes fluid or aeriform, or from the loss of rapidity of vibration in consequence of the motion of the particles...
Page 4 - The immediate cause of the phenomena of heat, then, is motion, and the laws of its communication are precisely the same as the laws of the communication of motion.

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