Unpublished paper, 'On the peculiar cooling effects of hydrogen and its compounds in cases of voltaic ignition' by W F [William Ford] Stevenson

Description

Stevenson shares several theories which he considers to be established by the experiments cited in a pamphlet which he published, entitled 'The Non-decomposition of Water distinctly proved'. He then states, that when we apply the principle of these theorems to Grove’s discovery of the cooling properties of hydrogen, it will be found to admit of a most simple solution: 'for instance, when the coil of platinum wire is connected with the poles of the electric battery, and the current is established, it is evident that the electric matter thus passed through the wire must escape at the contrary end (the air with which the wire is surrounded not being a conductor of electricity), and as the quantity of electric matter thus transmitted is considerable, and its exit from the wire confined but rapid, that commotion before noticed (in one of the author’s theorems) necessarily ensues and causes the ignition of the wire ; but when the coil of wire is immersed in hydrogen, which is a conductor of electricity, it is evident that the electric matter must be, at the same moment, abstracted or conducted from every portion of the wire, and consequently the commotion or rush of the electric matter at the extremity of the wire, which causes the ignition, is suspended and the comparative coolness of the wire is the necessary result'.

Subject: Chemistry / Thermodynamics

Received 7 February 1848. Read 11 January 1849.

Whilst the Royal Society declined to publish this paper in full, an abstract of the paper was published in volume 5 of Abstracts of the Papers Printed in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London [later Proceedings of the Royal Society] as 'On the peculiar cooling effects of hydrogen and its compounds in cases of voltaic ignition'.

Reference number

AP/31/14

Earliest possible date

1848

Physical description

Ink on paper

Page extent

13 pages

Format

Manuscript