Ebullition

The temperature at which a fluid boils is called the boiling-point of that particular fluid. It is different for different liquids; and, moreover, in the same liquid it varies with certain changes of circumstance. Thus the same liquid in various states of purity would have its boiling temperature altered in a slight degree. There is also an intimate connection with the pressure under which a fluid is boiled, and its temperature of ebullition. Liquids boiled in the open air are subjected to the atmospheric pressure, which is well known to vary at different times and places; and the boiling-point of the liquid exhibits corresponding changes. When the pressure is increased on the surface of any fluid, the temperature of ebullition rises; and with a decrease of pressure, the boiling goes on at a lower degree of heat.

In the case of water, we commonly state the boiling-point to be 212° F.; but it is only so at the level of the sea, under the mean pressure of the atmosphere, represented, in the latitude of London, by a column of 29·905 inches of mercury, at a temperature of 32° F., and when the water is fresh and does not contain any matter chemically dissolved in it. When steam is generated and confined in a boiler, the pressure upon the boiling water may be several times greater than that of the atmosphere. Experimentally it has been found, that if the pressure in the boiler be 25 lbs. on the square inch, the temperature of the boiling water, and of the steam likewise, is raised to 241°; while under the exhausted receiver of an air-pump, water will boil at 185°, when the pressure is reduced to 17 inches of mercury.

92. Relation between the Boiling-Point and Elevation.—Now, as the atmospheric pressure is diminished by ascent, as shown by the fall of mercury in the barometer, it follows that in elevated localities water, or any other fluid, heated in the open air, will boil at a temperature lower than at the sea-level. Therefore, there must be some relation between the height of a hill, or mountain, and the temperature at which a fluid will boil at that height. Hence, the thermometer, as used to determine the boiling-point of fluids, is also an indicator of the atmospheric pressure; and may be used as a substitute for the barometer in measuring elevations.

If the atmospheric pressure were constant at the sea-level, and always the same for definite heights, we might expect the boiling-points of fluids also to be in exact accordance with height; and the relation once ascertained, we could readily, by means of the thermometer and boiling water, determine an unknown height, or for a known elevation assert the boiling temperature of a liquid. However, as the atmospheric pressure is perpetually varying at the same place, within certain limits, so there are, as it were, sympathetic changes in the boiling temperatures of fluids. It follows from this, that heights can never be accurately measured, either by the barometer or the boiling-point thermometer, by simply observing at the places whose elevations are required. To determine a height with any approach to accuracy, it is necessary that a similar observation should be made at the same time at a lower station, not very remote laterally from the upper, and that they should be many times repeated. When such observations have been very carefully conducted, the height of the upper station above the lower may be ascertained with great precision, as has been repeatedly verified by subsequent trigonometrical measurement of elevations so determined. If the lower station be at the sea-level, of course the absolute height of the upper is at once obtained.