On the Boiling Point of Water

Introduction . —In the course of some work, communicated to the Royal Societ by one of us, in which determinations of the boiling points of some saturated solutions were made by Buchanan’s method (the so-called Landsberger-Sakurai method), it was pointed out that these boiling points probably varied according to the height of liquid operated upon. During the course of that research a few experiments, which, however, are not recorded in the paper, were made on the boiling point of water; and it was found that this boiling point was approximately that due to a head of water equal to half the total height of liquid. The paper cited mentioned the hope that direct osmotic pressure measurements might be obtained; this hope has not been fulfilled, but as an exact connection between the vapour-pressure and the osmotic pressure of a solution has since been worked out, a knowledge of the boiling points will enable the osmotic pressure to be calculated.