116 Papers relating to the Fusion of Carbon. 
“ Fourthly—The Comnuttee object to the following passage: 
* It ought not to have been so readily supposed that in scruti- 
mizing the substances which he (Professor Silliman) had ob- 
tained, with a view to communicate the result to the public, 
any advantageous employment of the magnet, the hammer, the 
file, or the mineral acids, had been omitted.” The Commiitce 
eannol think it so entirely evident, that Mr. Silliman must 
have employed all these tests, (none of which he mentions in 
his paper,) that the Society’s correspondent should be called to 
task for having supposed the contrary possible.” 
It appears from Professor Silliman’s Memoir, (vol. 5, page 363, Ameri- 
can Journal of Science,) that he did employ boiling sulphuric, and boil- 
ing nitric acid; and moreover, it is evident that the products which he 
represented as fused carbon, could not have been iron, both on account 
of their habitudes with these acids, and on account of their disappear- 
ance when subjected to the solar focus in oxygen gas. Of course no 
* advantageous” application of the magnet could have been made. In 
examining the globules produced upon plumbago, when exposed to the 
deflagrator, it will be found that Professor Silliman did resort to the 
magnet. Iron being a constituent of plumbago, it was in that case ra- 
tional to expect that the globules might be magnetic. The magnet was 
also employed by him in testing the globules procured from anthracite. 
by means of the deflagrator. 
The responsibility of the rejection of my remarks, must fall princi- 
pally on Dr. Patterson, chairman of the Committee; since he wrote the 
report, in opposition to the opinion of his colleague, Dr. Troust, the 
principal founder, and first president of the Academy. 
My strictures on the second memoir of Prof. Vanuxem on fused car- 
bon, published in this number of the American Journal, page 102, have 
been denied a place in the Journal of the Academy, for the following 
‘easons, advanced by the committee to whom it was referred : 
Ist. That, “ 4s the paper of Mr. Vanuxem is neither per- 
sonal nor controversial, nor even argumentative in its charac- 
ter, it does not appear to have merited a@ reply of the nature 
of that submitted.” 
2d. That, “Jf Mr. Vanuxem’s paper be an attack, it is one 
made with the instruments of the Laboratory, and should be 
repelled by the same means.” 
3d. That, “Jf the Academy is to be called in as a second. 
in this literary contest, it should see that the antagonists use the 
Same weapons.” 
4th. That, in a journal, “ established’? for the record ot 
tacts, “7t monld he meonsistent? to introduce “a paper which, 
