Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 2, 2025
The Germans could have used sulphur gas just as well as chlorine gas, but sulphur was not poisonous, and would not kill; chlorine and bromine would. We had just learned that they were using red phosphorus in their shells, and that any particle of that chemical that got into a wound would set up gangrene from which hundreds of soldiers died in terrible agony.
Besides the diminished expense, the cotton stuffs bleached with chlorine suffer less in the hands of skilful workmen than those bleached in the sun; and already the peasantry in some parts of Germany have adopted it, and find it advantageous. Another use to which cheap muriatic acid is applied, is the manufacture of glue from bones.
Still the Americans fought on gallantly, desperately, knowing that everything was at stake, and our aeroplanes, with their batteries of machine guns, gave effective assistance. Superiority in numbers, however, soon made itself felt and at five o'clock the Germans, relieved from the chlorine menace, advanced their heavy artillery and began a terrific bombardment of our trenches.
A profitable application of it was, however, soon discovered: it is a compound of chlorine, and this substance may be obtained from it purer than from any other source.
Lying on the floors were scores of soldiers with faces blue or ghastly green in colour choking, vomiting and gasping for air, in their struggles with death, while a faint odour of chlorine hung about the place.
In nature, chlorine and sodium are not found in a free or separate state; they hunted each other up long ago, and united to produce the enormous quantities of rock salt that the earth holds. One can give his imagination free range in trying to picture what takes place when two or more elements unite chemically, but probably there is no physical image that can afford even a hint of it.
As hydrogen is generally taken as the standard, in practice the valency of an atom is the number of hydrogen atoms it will combine with or replace. Thus chlorine and the rest of the halogens, the atoms of which combine with one atom of hydrogen, are called univalent, oxygen a bivalent element, and so on.
Solutions of these do not change colour or coagulate on boiling; ammonia changes the colour to blue or green; acid brightens the original colour, while chlorine bleaches it. =Hairs.= Human hairs must be identified and distinguished from those of the lower mammals.
After this, he heats the solution to drive off any excess of chlorine, and also the solvent, whereupon he has left behind a pasty mass with which it is only necessary to incorporate sufficient precipitated carbonate of lime or sulphate of lead, or, indeed, any other dense white powder, to obtain a material which may be pressed into molds to form whatever articles may be desired.
Shells and rifle fire were forgotten in the scorching livid breath of the chlorine. Scores of men died where they stood. Some tried to crawl away. The bearers brought some out from the front line, but when I examined their pulses I found them dead. Poor fellows, their features were distorted and their faces livid. Blood-tainted froth clung to their lips. Their skins were mottled blue and white.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking