THE 



PHILOSOPHICAL MAGAZINE 

 AND JOURNAL. 



31 st JUL Y 1824. 



I. On Professor Dcebereiner's new Mode of producing 

 Fire. By Dr. J. S. C. Schweigger *. 



SUCH new and interesting phenomena as those of which 

 mention has been made by M. Dcebereiner, naturally ex- 

 cite the wish to connect them, if possible, with the series of 

 other phaenomena of nature already known. Every trial of 

 this sort, however fruitless it may end, will at least contribute 

 to show the object from more than one point of view, and by 

 that means to facilitate the development of the mystery. 

 The following observations were caused by a small publica- 

 tion, to which we wish to direct the reader's attention. It is 

 entitled, On the newly discovered and very remarkable Properties 

 of Platinum, and the Pneumatic Capillary Agency of cracked 

 Glass; by J. W. Dcebereiner. Jena 1823. In this pamphlet, 

 we find, in page 6, under the head " Fruitless Endeavour to ex- 

 plain satisfactorily the newly-discovered Property of Platinum " 

 the following remark : " As the hydrogen is neither absorbed 

 nor condensed by the metallic platinum dust, and yet the in- 

 flammability of the former so much heightened, when in con- 

 tact with the latter, that it attracts oxygen in a diluted state, in 

 which an electric spark cannot effect their union, the effect can- 

 not be considered as resultingfrom any mechanical agency of the 

 platinum-, but it must be supposed, in order to explain the phae- 

 nomena satisfactorily, either that the hydrogen gas forms an 

 electrical combination with the platinum, in which the former 

 represents the exciting and inflammable agent, or the zinc, or 

 that the entire phaenomenon is determined by the peculiar 

 form of the atoms of the platinum. - On the former supposi- 

 tion, we must assume that hydrogen is a substance of a metal- 

 lic nature; and on the latter, consider the spongy platinum, 



* From his Neue Journal fiir Chemie, &c. band ix. p. 211. 

 Vol. 64. No. 315. July 1824. A 2 with. 



