24 HISTORY OF THE DAUBENY LABORATORY 



H. B. ^ Professor Dixon's connexion with our Laboratory is best 



Research ex pl ame d m his wn words 



on Rate ' I had been working on the explosion of gases in the 

 sfonn? 10 " Christ Church Laboratory, 1876-9. On my election to 

 Gases. a lectureship at Balliol and Trinity I continued the work 

 in the Balliol Laboratory, and made some attempts to 

 measure the rate of explosion of gases. I think it was 

 in 1 88 1 that my friend, C. J. F. Yule, Fellow of Magdalen, 

 showed me round the Magdalen Laboratory, and explained 

 the electric chronograph with which he had been doing 

 physiological experiments. This instrument seemed to be 

 adaptable to my wants, so as he was no longer using it, 

 I asked him to let me try it on my gases. This he allowed 

 me to do, and I soon found it would accurately record the very 

 rapid movements of the explosions. Accordingly I got leave 

 from the College to work in the Laboratory, and I worked 

 there for about two years. In 1883 or 1884 I bought the 

 chronograph from Magdalen, and removed it to Balliol. 



' During 1882 and 1883 I used to go to the Magdalen 

 Laboratory in the afternoons, and sometimes evenings. 



' I used the chronograph to determine the initial rate of 

 explosion of mixtures of carbonic oxide and oxygen with 

 different quantities of moisture, and also for measuring the 

 rate of the " explosion-wave " in gases under different condi- 

 tions. My results were published in a memoir, " On the 

 Conditions of Chemical Change in Gases," Phil. Trans. R. S. 

 1884, and in the Bakerian Lecture for 1893, "On the Rate 

 of Explosion in Gases," Phil. Trans. 1893. 



* I occasionally met the Rev. T. H. T. Hopkins in the 

 Laboratory, and he became interested in my work. He gave 

 me a piece of apparatus which had belonged to Daubeny. 

 I remember watching with him some of the sunset " glows " 

 (the after-effect of the eruption of Krakatoa) from the 

 Laboratory windows.' Extract from a letter from Professor 

 H. B. Dixon to the author. 



A tradition is extant in the Laboratory that there was a 

 great depletion of chemical glass during Mr. Dixon's sojourn 

 there, on account of the destructive nature of his research. 



