182 ON SUPEIMIEATED STEAM. 



jour Society had had no experience. It is this 

 beHef that has induced me to travel so far out of 

 my own particular pursuits as I have done, to 

 present this paper to the notice of the Odontolo- 

 gical Society ; and if, from the varied experience 

 of my life, I can bring to bear upon this subject 

 any useful fact, and can offer any practical sug- 

 gestion, I shall esteem my present attempt to do 

 so a very happy and a very grateful task. I have, 

 however, been urged by so many of the profession 

 not to confine myself to superheated steam, but 

 to give my observations a wider and more practical 

 range, embracing, as far as I am able, the whole 

 subject and application of steam, steam-boilers, 

 dry heat, the hardening and nature of the dental 

 rubber compound. I will, therefore, with your 

 permission, enter upon the subject in a general 

 manner, and from a dentist's point of view ; and 

 in all this which relates to steam, I do so without 

 any feeling of presumption, knowing, as I do, that 

 there is yet much unknown and untold, in all that 

 relat^ to the economy of steam-heat, and the 

 causes which produce explosions in steam-boilers. 

 It is said by one who has written much upon the 

 subject, " that the rule which connects the tem- 

 peratures or elasticities, or volumes of steam (one 

 or all), with the expenditures of heat in producing 

 it — a question affecting even the resources of 

 nations — remains to be settled ; and it has been 

 truly said, that the imperfect knowledge of it must 



