The history of the discovery, physical and chemical properties, and analytical potentialities of chromatographic methods using the stationary gas phase, such as liquid-gas and liquid-gas adsorption chromatography, are considered. Taking into account the retention of the stationary gas phase in the pores of a hydrophobic support, one can optimize the conditions for the separation and extraction of volatile substances from aqueous solutions on hydrophobic adsorbents in solid-phase extraction and reversed-phase liquid chromatography. "Scientific progress is the progress of a method." M.S. Tswett.