L 99 ] 



No. XX. 



Account of the fusion of Strontites, and volatilization of Platinum, 

 and also of a ?ieio arrangement of apparatus. Communicated 

 by Robert Hare, junr. member if (lie Society. 



Read June 17th, 1803. 



IT is known, I believe, to some of the members of the 

 Philosophical Society, that a memoir on the supply and ap- 

 plication of the blowpipe, which I had presented to the Che- 

 mical Society, was published in the commencement of last 

 summer*. This memoir contains a description of a machine, 

 termed an hydrostatic blowpipe, calculated to confine or propel 

 the gases, for the production ot' heat, or other purposes; also 

 an account of some experiments, in which by a concentra- 

 tion of caloric, till then unattained, substances were fused, 

 which had been before deemed infusible. It was mentioned 

 that alumine, silex, and barytes, were found susceptible of 

 rapid fusion, and that the fusion of lime and magnesia, though 

 extremely difficult, was yet, in a few instances partially attain- 

 ed. Platinum was described, as not only susceptible of fu- 

 sion, but even of volatilization. 



Being induced, last winter, to reinstate the apparatus, by 

 which these experiments were performed, I was enabled to 

 confirm my judgment of the volatilization of platinum, by 

 the observation of Drs. Woodhouse and Seybert; for in the 

 presence of these skilful Chemists, I completely dissipated 

 some small globules of this metal, of about the tenth of an 

 inch in diameter. In tact, I found platinum to be equally 

 susceptible of rapid volatilization, whether exposed in its na- 

 tive granular form, or in that of globules, obtained from the 

 orange coloured precipitate of the nitro-muriatic solution, by 

 tin- muriate of ammoniac. 



* Republished in the 14-th volume of Tillock's Philosophical Magazine, and also in the an. 

 nales de Chimie vol, 45. 



