Note 33 — Chapter I · ON WATER AND ITS COMPOUNDS

The ratio between the pressure and the amount of gas dissolved was discovered by Henry in 1805, and Dalton in 1807 pointed out the adaptability of this law to cases of gaseous mixtures, introducing the conception of partial pressures which is absolutely necessary for a right comprehension of Dalton's law. The conception of partial pressures essentially enters into that of the diffusion of vapours in gases (footnote 1); for the pressure of damp air is equal to the sum of the pressures of dry air and of the aqueous vapour in it, and it is admitted as a corollary to Dalton's law that evaporation in dry air takes place as in a vacuum. It is, however, necessary to remark that the volume of a mixture of two gases (or vapours) is only approximately equal to the sum of the volumes of its constituents (the same, naturally, also refers to their pressures)—that is to say, in mixing gases a change of volume occurs, which, although small, is quite apparent when carefully measured. For instance, in 1888 Brown showed that on mixing various volumes of sulphurous anhydride (SO2) with carbonic anhydride (at equal pressures of 760 mm. and equal temperatures) a decrease of pressure of 3·9 millimetres of mercury was observed. The possibility of a chemical action in similar mixtures is evident from the fact that equal volumes of sulphurous and carbonic anhydrides at -19° form, according to Pictet's researches in 1888, a liquid which may be regarded as an unstable chemical compound, or a solution similar to that given when sulphurous anhydride and water combine to an unstable chemical whole.