Unexpected Transformations

General Properties of Gases:
If the pressure on a gas is greatly increased, a sudden transformation sometimes occurs and the gas becomes a liquid. Then, if the pressure is reduced, a second transformation occurs, and the liquid evaporates or returns to its original form as a gas.

We know that a fall of temperature caused water vapor to condense or liquefy. If temperature alone were considered, most gases could not be liquefied, because the temperature at which the average gas liquefies is so low as to be out of the range of possibility; it has been calculated, for example, that a temperature of 252° C. below zero would have to be obtained in order to liquefy hydrogen.

Some gases can be easily transformed into liquids by pressure alone, some gases can be easily transformed into liquids by cooling alone; on the other hand, many gases are so difficult to liquefy that both pressure and low temperature are needed to produce the desired result. If a gas is cooled and compressed at the same time, liquefaction occurs much more surely and easily than though either factor alone were depended upon. The air which surrounds us, and of whose existence we are scarcely aware, can be reduced to the form of a liquid, but the pressure exerted upon the portion to be liquefied must be thirty-nine times as great as the atmospheric pressure, and the temperature must have been reduced to a very low point.