28 Kansas Academy of Science. 



man largely lacked — originality; or, as we would now say, 

 "research ability." While in the first fifty volumes of the 

 American Journal of Science Silliman has only twenty-nine 

 contributions of moderate importance, Hare's titles in the 

 same volumes number some one hundred and fifty, in the 

 fields of chemistry, physics and meteorology. The subjects 

 range from descriptions of new apparatus, processes for mak- 

 ing fulminating powder, analysis of gaseous mixtures, methods 

 of detecting minute quantities of opium, to contributions on 

 the theory of atoms, the nature of acids and bases, and the 

 principles of chemical nomenclature. Space forbids any ex- 

 tended description of these papers, but two of them deserve 

 at least a passing notice. Hare when a youth of twenty in- 

 vented the oxyhydrogen blowpipe, a discovery which was 

 later rewarded with the first Rumford medal. Lavoisier had 

 obtained high temperatures by directing a stream of oxygen 

 on glowing charcoal, but it was left for Hare to show that 

 the maximum possible effects of heat could be obtained by 

 surrounding the body to be heated with an atmosphere of 

 burning gas, produced by burning hydrogen in an atmosphere 

 of oxygen. In the hands of Hare and Silliman this apparatus, 

 until the invention of the electric furnace, was the most 

 powerful means for the development of high temperatures. 

 By its aid metals like gold and platinum were not only fused 

 but vaporized, while silicates, the precious stones, the oxides 

 of barium, strontium and calcium were fused. Growing out 

 of it are the later technical uses, the Drummond or calcium 

 light and the purification of refractory metals like platinum. 



Silliman, in an article in the Journal of Science, describes 

 some experiments where plumbago or natural graphite was 

 subjected to the heat of this flame. He speaks of obtaining 

 crystals that would scratch glass, results which would in- 

 dicate that he had obtained the silicide of carbon or car- 

 borundum, a product now manufactured in the electric fur- 

 nace and one of great importance as an abrasive agent. A 

 second interesting discovery of Hare was the "calorimeter," 

 a description of which was published in 1819 in a memoir 

 entitled "A New Theory of Galvanism." The apparatus con- 

 sisted of large plates of copper and zinc which could be plunged 

 into dilute acid. This was modified in 1820, in that sheets of 

 copper and zinc containing several hundred square feet, sepa- 

 rated by felt, saturated with acidulated water, were made into 



