635.  Nor was this the case with platina or metals only, but also with earthy bodies, Rock crystal and obsidian would not wet freely upon the surface, but being moistened with strong oil of vitriol, then washed, and left in distilled water to remove all the acid, they did freely become moistened, whether they were previously dry or whether they were left wet; but being dried and left exposed to the air for twenty-four hours, their surface became so soiled that water would not then adhere freely to it, but ran up into partial portions.  Wiping with a cloth (even the cleanest) was still worse than exposure to air; the surface either of the minerals or metals immediately became as if it were slightly greasy.  The floating upon water of small particles of metals under ordinary circumstances is a consequence of this kind of soiled surface.  The extreme difficulty of cleaning the surface of mercury when it has once been soiled or greased, is due to the same cause.

636.  The same reasons explain why the power of the platina plates in some circumstances soon disappear, and especially upon use:  MM.  Dulong and Thenard have observed the same effect with the spongy metal[A], as indeed have all those who have used Doebereiner’s instantaneous light machines.  If left in the air, if put into ordinary distilled water, if made to act upon ordinary oxygen and hydrogen, they can still find in all these cases that minute portion of impurity which, when once in contact with the surface of the platina, is retained there, and is sufficient to prevent its full action upon oxygen and hydrogen at common temperatures:  a slight elevation of temperature is again sufficient to compensate this effect, and cause combination.

  [A] Annales de Chimie, tom. xxiv. p. 386.

637.  No state of a solid body can be conceived more favourable for the production of the effect than that which is possessed by platina obtained from the ammonio-muriate by heat.  Its surface is most extensive and pure, yet very accessible to the gases brought in contact with it:  if placed in impurity, the interior, as Thenard and Dulong have observed, is preserved clean by the exterior; and as regards temperature, it is so bad a conductor of heat, because of its divided condition, that almost all which is evolved by the combination of the first portions of gas is retained within the mass, exalting the tendency of the succeeding portions to combine.

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638.  I have now to notice some very extraordinary interferences with this phenomenon, dependent, not upon the nature or condition of the metal or other acting solid, but upon the presence of certain substances mingled with the gases acted upon; and as I shall have occasion to speak frequently of a mixture of oxygen and hydrogen, I wish it always to be understood that I mean a mixture composed of one volume of oxygen to two volumes of hydrogen, being the proportions that form water.  Unless otherwise expressed, the hydrogen was always that obtained by the action of dilute sulphuric acid on pure zinc, and the oxygen that obtained by the action of heat from the chlorate of potassa.