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Various

"Scientific American Supplement, No. 299, September 24, 1881"

solution of alcohol
and water, plunge it into water of 20 deg.C., and put its interior in
hermetic communication with the receiver of a mercurial air-pump.
We vaporize at 20 deg. a certain quantity of the liquid, and the vapors
fill the known capacity of the pump. The pressure of the gases in the
interior is ascertained by a pressure gauge, and this pressure should be
constant if care is taken to act upon a sufficient mass of liquid and
with moderate speed. When the receiver of the air-pump is full of
vapors, communication between it and the test-tube is shut off, and
communication is effected with a second test-tube, like the first,
plunged into the same water at 20 deg.. Care must be taken beforehand to
create a perfect vacuum in this test-tube.
On causing the mercury to rise into the space that it previously
occupied, the vapors are made to condense in the second test-tube at the
same temperature as that at which they were formed.
We immediately ascertain that the pressure-gauge shows an elevation
of pressure; moreover, the proof of the condensed alcohol has very
perceptibly risen.
If, instead of causing these vapors to condense in the second test-tube,
we leave the first communication open, the vapors recondense in the
first test-tube without any elevation of pressure; and we do not see the
least trace of liquid forming in the second test tube.


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