110 Explosion of Hydrogen and Oxygen. 
where the compression would be about thirty atmospheres, no 
such effect was produced. And in the present case, the conden- 
sation had been made rapidly, and two hours before the explosion 
occurred. It is not impossible that the state of compression and 
close approximation of the particles of the gases may have aided 
the rapid combination, and but a slight increase of temperature 
have been required to produce explosion, which may have been 
caused in the tube, by the slight explosions to which I have be- 
fore alluded as so often occurring in the jet. The capacity of 
the jet and stop cock, in front of the safety tube, was sufficient 
to contain but about one cubic inch of the gases, and the com- 
bustion of so small a quantity could have had but little influ- 
ence in raising the temperature of the safety tube; probably 
none, when we consider that the compressed gases were expand- 
ing as they passed out, and no doubt attended with the usual 
effect, the absorption of caloric. 
In a letter now before me, Dr. Hare has suggested the heat- 
ing effect of the previous slight explosions, as the most probable 
cause of the final explosion; but for the reasons just stated, I am 
constrained to seek for some more satisfactory explanation. 
Although it would be difficult, if not impossible, to prove that 
electricity, from the presence of the different metals entering 
into the construction of the various parts of the apparatus, or de- 
veloped by, or evolved from the gases, or the products of their 
first partial combustions, was not the immediate cause of this 
explosion, it would be equally difficult, in the present state of 
our knowledge, to prove that it was. The ignition of platinum 
sponge, and the combination of oxygen and hydrogen which it 
effects, it is well known, were, when first observed, attributed by 
Dobereiner to electricity, which has not been disproved, or satls- 
factorily explained, even by the researches of Faraday. 
aving communicated to the distinguished inventor of the 
compound blow-pipe a brief notice of the occurrence which 
have described, it will not, I trust, be deemed an undue liberty 
to remark, that in the letter above referred to, Dr. Hare appeals 
to consider all explosions as dependent on “a mysterious electrical 
reversal of polarities,” and that we are not as yet able to deter 
mine all the modes by which such reversals may be induced. 
From the first experiments made with the Hemming’s tube; 
it is obvious that it cannot be said that the wires were not 
