316 Improvements on Brunner^s process for Potassium. 



I have already mentioned that in the first operation which I made 

 after that plan, I used the copper vessels recommended by Berze- 

 lius. The inner vessel having been allowed to remain in connection 

 with the gun barrel, which formed the means of communication be- 

 tween it and the iron bottle, for thirty six hours after the process was 

 terminated, my assistant attempting to effect a separation, struck 

 the neck of the receiver with a hard body. Immediately a detona- 

 tion ensued, as violent as if a musket had been fired, and the receiv- 

 er though open at one end, was bulged from a square nearly into a 

 cylindrical form. In this case it might be imagined that naphtha had 

 some agency, yet it could have had but little access to the part of the 

 apparatus fi'ora which the explosion proceeded. Besides, Dr. Gale 

 mentions that he met with explosions in removing potassium and its 

 accompaniments from the interior of the tube, when no naphtha had 

 been used, and he recommends the affusion of that liquid, as a pre- 

 ventive of explosion. 



The rod employed to keep the passage through the iron cylinder 

 free as above mentioned, coming out coated with potassium, I 

 strove to detach it by scraping, and to save it by receiving it in naph- 

 tha. I succeeded in amassing in this way a quantity worthy of the 

 trouble. In scraping the rod for this purpose by the edge of a square 

 bar, explosions constantly took place as the latter came in contact 

 with a bluish matter, the nature of which I could- not ascertain. 

 Berzelius ascribes these explosions to moisture ; but they have occur- 

 red, as in the instance above mentioned of detaching the receiver, 

 where moisture could not have contributed to the result. 



Of a method of filing tubes with potassium, by the author of the 

 preceding articles. 



I have succeeded in filling glass tubes with potassium in the follow- 

 ing manner. One ehd of a tube is luted to one of the orifices of a 

 cock ; to the other orifice, the neck of a gum elastic bag of a suitable 

 size is attached. The open end of the tube is reduced in diameter 

 by means of a flame excited by the blow-pipe, so as to have an 

 orifice about large enough to receive a knitting needle. The gum 

 elastic bag is filled with hydrogen, and the cock closed. Mean- 

 while the potassium is heated in naphtha, in a larger tube, till it lies 

 at the bottom in a liquid state. 



In the next place, the bag is grasped with one hand and subjected 

 to pressure, at the same time introducing the small orifice of the tube 



