The Liquefaction of Gases

Abstract

THE object of the communications on the liquefaction of gases, which have recently appeared in NATURE and the Philosophical Magazine, is to depreciate; the work of Cailletet and Pictet, to smother away the first-class work of the deceased Wroblewski to annihilate myself, and thereby to magnify the claims for originality of Prof. Olszewski. In spite of the mistakes inevitable to pioneers, the work of Cailletet and Pictet must always be credited with originating research in this department. To show my appreciation of such investigation, and to give it a wide publicity in the year 1878, a Friday evening address was devoted to the work of Cailletet and Pictet, during the course of which I showed for the first time in this country the working of the Cailletet apparatus. Similarly, in the year 1884, an address was given on the work of Wroblewski and Olszewski, in the course of which I illustrated for the first time in public the liquefaction of oxygen and air, showing the boiling point, &c, by means of a simple form of apparatus which did not involve the use of the Cailletet pump as employed by these experimenters. To deliver a lecture on the work of other people is generally considered a mark of honour, and as usefully diffusing a knowledge of the same. The critic has for some object omitted half the opening sentence of this address, which runs as follows:—