Conversations on Chemistry Part 7

I can, however, show you an air thermometer of a very peculiar construction, which is remarkably well adapted for some chemical experiments, as it is equally delicate and accurate in its indications.

CAROLINE.

It looks like a double thermometer reversed, the tube being bent, and having a large bulb at each of its extremities. (PLATE II. Fig. 2.)

EMILY.

Why do you call it an air thermometer; the tube contains a coloured liquid?

MRS. B.

But observe that the bulbs are filled with air, the liquid being confined to a portion of the tube, and answering only the purpose of showing, by its motion in the tube, the comparative dilatation or contraction of the air within the bulbs, which afford an indication of their relative temperature. Thus if you heat the bulb A, by the warmth of your hand, the fluid will rise towards the bulb B, and the contrary will happen if you reverse the experiment.

But if, on the contrary, both tubes are of the same temperature, as is the case now, the coloured liquid, suffering an equal pressure on each side, no change of level takes place.

CAROLINE.

This instrument appears, indeed, uncommonly delicate. The fluid is set in motion by the mere approach of my hand.

MRS. B.

You must observe, however, that this thermometer cannot indicate the temperature of any particular body, or of the medium in which it is immersed; it serves only to point out the _difference_ of temperature between the two bulbs, when placed under different circ.u.mstances. For this reason it has been called _differential_ thermometer. You will see by-and-bye to what particular purposes this instrument applies.

EMILY.

But do common thermometers indicate the exact quant.i.ty of caloric contained either in the atmosphere, or in any body with which they are in contact?

MRS. B.

No: first, because there are other modifications of caloric which do not affect the thermometer; and, secondly, because the temperature of a body, as indicated by the thermometer, is only relative. When, for instance, the thermometer remains stationary at the freezing point, we know that the atmosphere (or medium in which it is placed, whatever it may be) is as cold as freezing water; and when it stands at the boiling point, we know that this medium is as hot as boiling water; but we do not know the positive quant.i.ty of heat contained either in freezing or boiling water, any more than we know the real extremes of heat and cold; and consequently we cannot determine that of the body in which the thermometer is placed.

CAROLINE.

I do not quite understand this explanation.

MRS. B.

Let us compare a thermometer to a well, in which the water rises to different heights, according as it is more or less supplied by the spring which feeds it: if the depth of the well is unfathomable, it must be impossible to know the absolute quant.i.ty of water it contains; yet we can with the greatest accuracy measure the number of feet the water has risen or fallen in the well at any time, and consequently know the precise quant.i.ty of its increase or diminution, without having the least knowledge of the whole quant.i.ty of water it contains.

CAROLINE.

Now I comprehend it very well; nothing appears to me to explain a thing so clearly as a comparison.

EMILY.

But will thermometers bear any degree of heat?

MRS. B.

No; for if the temperature were much above the highest degree marked on the scale of the thermometer, the mercury would burst the tube in an attempt to ascend. And at any rate, no thermometer can be applied to temperatures higher than the boiling point of the liquid used in its construction, for the steam, on the liquid beginning to boil, would burst the tube. In furnaces, or whenever any very high temperature is to be measured, a pyrometer, invented by Wedgwood, is used for that purpose. It is made of a certain composition of baked clay, which has the peculiar property of contracting by heat, so that the degree of contraction of this substance indicates the temperature to which it has been exposed.

EMILY.

But is it possible for a body to contract by heat? I thought that heat dilated all bodies whatever.

MRS. B.

This is not an exception to the rule. You must recollect that the bulk of the clay is not compared, whilst hot, with that which it has when cold; but it is from the change which the clay has undergone by _having been_ heated that the indications of this instrument are derived. This change consists in a beginning fusion which tends to unite the particles of clay more closely, thus rendering it less pervious or spongy.

Clay is to be considered as a spongy body, having many interstices or pores, from its having contained water when soft. These interstices are by heat lessened, and would by extreme heat be entirely obliterated.

CAROLINE.

And how do you ascertain the degrees of contraction of Wedgwood's pyrometer?

MRS. B.

The dimensions of a piece of clay are measured by a scale graduated on the side of a tapered groove, formed in a bra.s.s ruler; the more the clay is contracted by the heat, the further it will descend into the narrow part of the tube.

Before we quit the subject of expansion, I must observe to you that, as liquids expand more readily than solids, so elastic fluids, whether air or vapour, are the most expansible of all bodies.

It may appear extraordinary that all elastic fluids whatever, undergo the same degree of expansion from equal augmentations of temperature.

EMILY.

I suppose, then, that all elastic fluids are of the same density?

MRS. B.

Very far from it; they vary in density, more than either liquids or solids. The uniformity of their expansibility, which at first may appear singular, is, however, readily accounted for. For if the different susceptibilities of expansion of bodies arise from their various degrees of attraction of cohesion, no such difference can be expected in elastic fluids, since in these the attraction of cohesion does not exist, their particles being on the contrary possessed of an elastic or repulsive power; they will therefore all be equally expanded by equal degrees of caloric.

EMILY.

True; as there is no power opposed to the expansive force of caloric in elastic bodies, its effect must be the same in all of them.

MRS. B.

Let us now proceed to examine the other properties of free caloric.

Free caloric always tends to diffuse itself equally, that is to say, when two bodies are of different temperatures, the warmer gradually parts with its heat to the colder, till they are both brought to the same temperature. Thus, when a thermometer is applied to a hot body, it receives caloric; when to a cold one, it communicates part of its own caloric, and this communication continues until the thermometer and the body arrive at the same temperature.

EMILY.

Cold, then, is nothing but a negative quality, simply implying the absence of heat.

MRS. B.

Not the total absence, but a diminution of heat; for we know of no body in which some caloric may not be discovered.