i 
98 The Compound Blowpipe. 
so to modify the instrument or apparatus, as to give it the high 
est degree of convenience, and especially to obviate the danger 
of explosion. pp- 38, 39. 
ReMARKS. 
As the results produced by Mr. Hare’s compound blowpipe, 
fed by oxygen and hydrogen gases, continue te be mentioned in 
Europe, in many of the journals, without any reference to the 
results long since obtained in this country, we republish the 
following statement of facts, which was, in substance, first pub- 
lished in New-York, more than a year since. It should be ob- 
served that Mr. Tilloch has since published, in the Philosophi- 
cal Magazine in London, the memoir which contained the Ame- 
rican results, and there have been some other allusions to it in 
different European journals, and to Mr. Hare’s previous experi- 
menis; but still this beautiful class of results continue to be 
attributed to others.than their original discoverers. 3 
. Vale College, April 7, 1817. 
Various notices, more or less complete, chiefly copied from 
English newspapers, are now going the round of the public 
prints in this country, stating that “anew kind of fire” has 
been discovered in England, or, at least, new and heretofore un- 
paralleled means of exciting heat, by which the gems, and 
the most refractory substances in nature, are immediately melt 
ed, and even in various instances dissipated in vapour, or de- 
composed into their elements. The first glance at these state- 
ments, (which, as regards the effects, I have no doubt are sub- 
stantially true,) was sufficient to satisfy me that the basis of 
these discoveries was laid by an American discovery, made by 
Mr. Robert Hare, of Philadelphia, in 1801. In December, of 
that year, Mr. Hare communicated to the Chemical Soviety of 
Philadelphia, his discovery of a method of burning oxyge® and 
hydrogen gases, in a united stream, so as to produce a very in 
tense heat. 
In 1802, he published a detailed memoir on the subject, with 
an engraving of his apparatus, and he recited the effects of his 
instrument; some of which, in the degree of heat produced, sur 
passed any thing before known. 
. 
