100 FUSION OF STRONTITES 



About the same time, I discovered Strontites to be a fusible 

 substance; for, having obtained a portion of this earth pure, 

 from a specimen of the carbonat of strontites of Argyleshire 

 in Scotland, I exposed it on charcoal to the flame of the com- 

 pound blowpipe, after the manner described in my memoir 

 above alluded to*. It became fused into a blackish semivitri- 

 ous mass, in shape somewhat semiglobular. 



In the performance of these and other experiments, I was 

 associated with Mr. Benjamin Silliman, a gentleman of science 

 and ingenuity, who had a short time before been elected Pro- 

 fessor of Chemistry and Natural History, in Yale College, Con- 

 necticut. 



In the course of our operations, having occasion for large 

 quantities of the gases, we became desirous of avoiding the 

 inconvenience of lading water in and out of the pneumatic 

 tub, as this fluid rose or fell, in consequence of the filling 

 or emptying of large air-holders and jars. This induced us 

 to design an apparatus wherein this evil was avoided, and in 

 which the pneumatic tub and hydrostatic blowpipe were 

 united. This apparatus has since been executed by Mr. Silli- 

 man, in the laboratory of Yale College : and, as it proves to 

 be convenient in operations requiring large quantities of the 

 gases, I think it not improper to lay a drawing and descrip- 

 tion of it before the society. The drawing differs a little from 

 the original, in the arrangement of parts, where alteration is 

 obviously advantageous. 



As the apparatus to be described, is little else than an union 

 of the hydrostatic blowpipe, and pneumatic tub, it will of 



• In that memoir I ventured to distinguish this flame by the word gaseous- This appellation 

 has been objefled to, as not sufficiently distinctive — an objection since rendered valid, by the 

 discovery of the gaseous oxide of carbon, which had been confounded with hydrogen ; and 

 also by the consideration, that it does not distinguish between the flame of the hydrogen and oxy- 

 gen gases when perfectly pure, and when contaminated by other substances held in a state of 

 solution or mixture. 



Certainly the term gaseous is equally applicable to the flame of the gaseous oxide, and to that 

 of hydrogen gas ; but it is equally certain that it was in direft opposition to the theory now al- 

 most universally received, that the editors of the New-York Medical Repository, declared all flame 

 to be essentially gaseous : for it is well known that, with an exception for the combustion of 

 the permanently elastic fluids mentioned above, flame is not ignited gas, but ignited vapour. 

 However, as the term was badly chosen, I have written in the place of it, flame of the com- 

 pound blowpipe, the propriety of which will appear from an inspection of the instrument by 

 means of which the flame is supported, ^See plate III. Fig. 2.) - 



