THE 
PHILOSOPHICAL MAGAZINE 
AND JOURNAL. 
s 
1. Some new Researches on Flame. By Sir Humpury Davy, 
LL.D. FLRLS. V.P.RL* 
I HAVE described in three papers which the Royal Society have 
honoured with a place in their Transactions, a number of ex- 
periments on combustion, which show that the explosion of 
gaseous mixtures can be prevented or arrested by various cooling 
influences, and which led me to discover a tissue permeable to 
light and air, but impermeable to flame, on which I founded the 
invention of the wire-gauze safe-lamp now generally used in all 
collieries in which inflammable air prevails, for the preservation of 
the lives and persons of the miners. In a short notice published 
in the third number of the Journal of Science and the Arts, edited 
at the Royal Institution, I have given an account of some new 
results on flame, which show that the intensity of the light of 
flames depends principally upon the production and ignition of 
solid matter in combustion, and that the heat and light in this 
process are in a great measure independent phenomena. Since 
this notice has been printed, 1 have made a number of researches 
on flame: and as they appear to me to throw some new lights on 
this important subject, and to lead to some practical views con- 
nected with the useful arts, I shall without any further apology 
present them to the Royal Society. 
That greater distinctness may exist in the details, I shall treat 
of my subjects under four heads. In the first I shall discuss the 
effects of rarefaction, by partly removing the pressure of the at- 
mosphere upon flame and explosion. In the second, I shall con- 
sider the effects of heat in combustion. In the third, I shall 
examivue the effect of the mixture of gaseous substances not con- 
cerned in combustion upon flame and explosion. In the fourth, 
I shall offer some general views upon flame, and point out cer- 
tain practical and theoretical applications of the results. 
* From the Transactions of the Royal Society for 1817, part i. 
Vol. 50. No, 231. July 1817. A2 1, On 
