Volatile matter

“ Such concentrations of levity do indeed exist in varied forms. One is the 'warmth-body' represented by the blood-heat of the higher animals and man. There is, however, an occurrence of this kind also on the purely mineral level of nature, and it is this which has particular significance for our present study of matter. We meet it in all physical substances which have the peculiarity of being combustible. ”

“ Those in which earth and water predominate will be fixed, and will only become volatile by the action of heat; and those which contain most air and fire will be the only real combustibles. The great difficulty here is clearly to conceive how air and fire, both so volatile, can fix and become constituent parts of all bodies. ”

“ The particles of gases and vapors are brought together through the agency of vegetation and various forces, and are reduced to a solid form. By the process of combustion the constituent particles are disengaged, whereupon they take the form of activity that is natural to the gases and vapors when in a high state of freedom. The activity continues until overcome by the resistance of less active matter. Such heat is therefore the natural activity of the loosened particles of condensed gas and vapor. ”

“ On the one hand, we know by experiment, that oily and bituminous substances can be melted and partly changed into vapour by heat, and that they become harder and denser, in proportion as the more volatile parts have evaporated from them. On the other hand, coaly substances are destitute of fusibility and volatility, in proportion as they have been exposed to greater degrees of heat, and to other circumstances favourable to the dissipation of their more volatile and fluid parts. ”

“ The decomposition of bodies by heat is, moreover, assimilated to the phenomenon of volatilization: the rate of decomposition at a given temperature varying with the pressure, and with the nature of the atmosphere which surrounds the unstable body. ”

“ When Priestley commenced his studies, the current belief was, that atmospheric air, freed from accidental impurities, is a simple elementary substance, indestructible and unalterable, as water was supposed to be. When a combustible burned, or when an animal breathed in air, it was supposed that a substance, "phlogiston," the matter of heat and light, passed from the burning or breathing body into it, and destroyed its powers of supporting life and combustion. ”

“ The earth, and its surrounding envelope, the atmosphere, consist of a number of elements, which in myriad combinations give us everything we possess,—the air we breathe, the water we drink, the fire that warms us, are all made up of certain elements or gases. Water, hydrogen and oxygen; air, oxygen and nitrogen. Fire is combustion evolving light and heat. Chemical union always evolves heat, and when such union proceeds very rapidly fire is the result.
In all these combinations we shall find when we study chemistry that not a particle or atom of matter is ever lost. ”

“ The volatility of substances cannot be admitted to have any part in explaining the phenomenon. It depends wholly on the affinity of fluids for the odorous particles, and also for those of fatty matter. ”

“ The reason that some substances can be burned without injuring them, or upon the skin without burning, are explained as follows: These substances are very volatile, and their tension is considerable, and, in reality, when they are burning, it is merely their vapor which is on fire. ”

“ Chemistry informs us that this vaporous mass would contain not only the atmospheric air and water, but all the carbon, sulphur, phosphorus, chlorine, and other elements, volatile in themselves, or forming volatile compounds with oxygen or hydrogen, that are now imprisoned in various states of combination in the solid crust of the earth. ”

“ But it is plain that the fixity and volatility depend on the same attractive force in the first case, and become repulsive in the second; and from thence are we led to think that this change of matter into light, and from light into matter, is one of the most frequent operations of Nature. ”

“ If, moreover, the bodies acted on are brought to a temperature of over 700°, they appear to lose by volatilisation certain substances condensed in them, and at the same time their activity disappears. ”

“ About five times that amount affects a candle sensibly, a photometer being used, and it is extremely probable that less affects it also. Are human beings affected as readily? I rather avoid this question at present; we have not facts enough. We will now speak of the gas in conjunction with organic matter. ”

“ In the beginning of a cold in the head, for instance, the cold air irritates the inflamed mucous membrane of the nose, and causes repeated attacks of sneezing.
217. How the Atmosphere is Made Impure. The air around us is constantly being made impure in a great variety of ways. The combustion of fuel, the respiration of men and animals, the exhalations from their bodies, the noxious gases and effluvia of the various industries, together with the changes of fermentation and decomposition to which all organized matter is liable,—all tend to pollute the atmosphere. ”

“ All material substances, however small, and however light, buoyant, and ethereal they may seem, are subject to this force: the tiniest speck in a sunbeam and the most volatile vapour, equally with the heaviest metal and the hugest block, the particles of bodies as well as the bodies themselves. ”

“ The excess of heat and cold, humidity and dryness, noxious exhalations from the earth, the floating atoms in the atmosphere, the poisonous vapors from decomposed animal and vegetable matter, with many other invisible agents, are exerting their deadly influence; and were it not that every part of his system is endowed with a self-preserving power, a principle of excitability, or, in other words, a vital principle, the operations of the economy would cease, and a dissolution of his organic structure take place. ”

“ Either associated with this dust and gas from the beginning were the germs of all the vital and mental energy that have since manifested themselves in connection with matter, or they were not. If the affirmative is true, then vital and mental energy, or what we may term life, was associated with inorganic matter—in an active or latent state—from the beginning. If the negative is the case, then the vital and mental forces or germs have been subsequently introduced or imparted from without. ”

“ So I say that if the elements of our life can be boiled down to gases, then why can't gases combine as gases and still have the element of life? Water is always present in the atmosphere as vapor, then why not a life as a sort of water vapor variant? ”

“ The chief agent in causing the repulsion or separation of the particles of bodies from each other is heat, or more correctly caloric, by which is understood the unknown cause of the effect called heat. Philosophers are not agreed upon the nature of this wonderful agent. It pervades all nature, is the cause of nearly all the changes that take place both in organic and inorganic matter, and has great influence in the meteorological phenomena which we observe in the atmosphere that surrounds our planet. ”

“ But this impulsion depends still more immediately, and generally, on the power which produces heat; for it is principally by the means of heat, that impulsion penetrates organized bodies; it is by heat that they are formed, grow, and develope themselves. We may refer to attraction alone all the effects of inanimate matter; and in this same power of attraction, joined to that of heat, every phenomena of live matter. By live matter I understand not only every thing that lives, or vegetates, but also every living organic molecule, dispersed in the waste or remains of organized bodies. ”

“ What we say of water is equally true of all the combinations; all that is required being to change the numerical degrees of the latent heat, for fusion, for volatilization, and for dissociation. This being so, we arrive at the conclusion that even the least considerable quantity of matter in a state of dissociation may be regarded as a magazine of latent heat continually tending toward sensible development. ”

“ The value of a potential [3] for a volatile substance in a liquid may be measured in a coexistent gaseous phase, [4] and so far as the latter may be treated as an ideal gas or gas-mixture, [5] the value of the potential will be given by the equation (276) , ["Equilib. Het. Subs."] which may be briefly written
where is the potential of the volatile substance considered, either in the liquid or in the gas, the absolute temperature, the density of the volatile substance in the gas and a the constant of the law of Boyle and Charles. ”

“ And as we have understood that by means of volatilizing waters, nor onely Vegetables and Animals, but also minerals and fixt metals may be made volatile, and their purest parts brought over the Helm, and by this means do wonders as well in Physick as Alchymy. ”

“ If there was no substance or substantiality in the atmosphere, it could not affect and destroy substance, for, without tangibility, it would pass through substances, creating no visible [Pg 229] disturbance. Vague nothingness never yet compelled obedience from solid matter. That which disturbs and moves is much more powerful than that which is disturbed and moved. ”

“ But not only do gases of different densities, and air of different temperatures, act thus upon sound, but air saturated in different degrees with the vapors of volatile liquids can be shown by experiment to produce the same effect. ”

“ Putrescent gases and odors which originate from the decomposition of those substances, partake largely of their nature, and even carry with them minute atoms of the corrupted mass into the air we breathe, and it matters not whether this putrid and offensive matter exist in the air or flesh, where the Excelsior 39Preservative comes in contact with it the air is at once cleansed and rendered wholesome, or the flesh preserved. ”

“ Whenever heat is produced, molecules are set into vibrations of a certain intensity, and their relative equilibrium disturbed. Evidently, such a disturbance of the molecular equilibrium is due to interaction of molecules—that is, to molecular impact. Now, I have already shown, and you have understood it, I hope, that, in the case of impact, the movement never passes identically from this matter to that, but is produced in the one at the same rate as it is extinguished in the other. ”

“ When it is once fairly presented to the mind that during life there is in the animal body a finely diffused form of matter, a vapour filling every part—and even stored in some parts; a matter constantly renewed by the vital chemistry ”

“ The Particles of Fluids which do not cohere too strongly, and are of such a Smallness as renders them most susceptible of those Agitations which keep Liquors in a Fluor, are most easily separated and rarified into Vapour, and in the Language of the Chymists, they are volatile, rarifying with an easy Heat, and condensing with Cold. But those which are grosser, and so less susceptible of Agitation, or cohere by a stronger Attraction, are not separated without a stronger Heat, or perhaps not without Fermentation. ”

“ EVERY one knows that the matter which constitutes the various natural bodies occurs in three different forms, namely, the solid, the liquid, and the gaseous states. So, too, every one knows that the state of a body is not at all immutable: a solid may be fused and volatilized; a liquid may become a solid, or be transformed into vapor; a gas may be changed into a liquid or a solid—all these changes occurring according to the conditions of temperature or of pressure to which the solids, liquids, or gases, are subjected. ”

“ From this brief statement of the purposes served by the various gases forming our atmosphere, we see that they are to some extent antagonistic, and that any considerable increase of one or the other would lead to results that might be injurious either directly or in their ultimate results. And as the elements which constitute the bulk of all living matter possess properties which render them alone suitable for the purpose, we may conclude that the proportions in which they exist in our atmosphere cannot be very [ 215] widely departed from wherever organic forms are developed. ”

“ Limiting, then, our study to the molecular condition of a gas, picture to yourselves what must be the condition of our atmosphere, with its molecules flying about in all directions. Conceive what a molecular storm must be, raging about us, and how it must beat against our bodies and against every exposed surface. The molecules of our atmosphere move, on an average, nearly four (3.8) times slower than those of hydrogen under the same conditions; but then they weigh, on an average, fourteen and a half times more than hydrogen-molecules, and therefore strike with as great energy. ”

“ It is thought that all matter may be passed through the three stages--iron being capable of being volatilized, and gases condensed to liquids and solids--the chief difference of these states being greater or less distance between the constituent atoms and molecules. In gas the particles are distant from each other, like gnats flying in the air; in liquids, distant as men passing in a busy street; in solids, as men in a congregation, so sparse that each can easily move about. ”

“ What does science tell us of the drop of water? Two gases, the one exciting life and quickening combustion, the other a highly inflammable air, are, by the influence of a combination of powers, brought into a liquid globe. We can, from this crystal sphere, evoke heat, light, electricity, and actinism in enormous quantities ”

“ We know that all substances can be converted into gases, and that all gases can be reduced to liquids, and even solids, by the application of pressure and cold. If there is any way by which the visible substance of these fungi can be converted into its invisible gases, as water into oxygen and hydrogen, what we have seen can be logically explained. Perhaps, favoured by some affinity of the atmosphere, its constituent parts are broken up and become gases at this barometric pressure and temperature. We must ask the spirit, if he visits us again. ”