98 The Compound Bloxopipe. 



so to modify the instrument or apparatus as to give it the 

 highest degree of convenience, and especially to obviate the 

 danger of explosion." pp. 38 & 39. 



REMARKS. 



As the results produced by Mr. Hare's Compound Blow- 

 pipe, fed by oxygen and hydrogen gases, continue to be men- 

 tioned in Europe, in many of the Journals, without any refer- 

 ence to the results long since obtained in this country, we re- 

 publish the following statement of facts, which was, in sub- 

 stance, first published in New- York, more than a year since. 

 It should be observed, that Mr. Tilloch has since published, 

 in the Philosophical Magazine in London, the memoir which 

 contained the American results, and there have been some 

 other allusions to it in different European Journals, and to 

 Mr. Hare's previous experiments ; but still this interesting 

 class of results continue to be attributed to others than their 

 original discoverers. 



Yale College, April 7, 1817. 



Various notices, more or less complete, chiefly copied from 

 English newspapers, are now going the round of the public prints 

 in this country, stating that " a new kind of Jire'^ has been 

 discovered in England, or, at least, new and heretofore unpa- 

 ralleled means of exciting heat, by which the gems, and all the 

 most refractory substances in nature, are immediately melted, 

 and even in various instances dissipated in vapour, or decom- 

 posed into their elements. The first glance at these state- 

 ments, (which, as regards the effects, I have no doubt are 

 substantially true,) was sufficient to satisfy me, that the basis 

 of these discoveries was laid by an American discovery, made 

 by Mr. Robert Hare of Philadelphia, in 1801. In December 

 of that year, Mr. Hare communicated to the Chemical Society 

 of Philadelphia his discovery of a method of burning oxygen 

 and hydrogen gases in a united stream, so as to produce a very 

 intense heat. 



In 1802, he published a detailed memoir on the subject, 

 with an engraving of his apparatus, and he recited the effects 

 of his instrument ; some of which, in the degree of heat pro- 

 duced, surpassed any thing before known. 



