Miscellanies. 173 



Dr. Hare made a verbal communication in relation to his compound 

 blowpipe. He stated that, having in a letter to the chemical section 

 of the British Association, mentioned the fusion of twenty-five ounces 

 of platinum, of which he had already informed the Society, a Mr. 

 Maugham, who is employed at the Adelaide Gallery in London to 

 exhibit the hydro-oxygen microscope, had asserted that the fusion in 

 question had been accomplished by a blowpipe of a kind which he 

 had contrived, and of which one had been bought by Dr. Hare when 

 in London. 



Dr. Hare said he would not have considered this ridiculous and 

 groundless allegation worthy of notice, had it not been made before 

 the chemical section of the British Association, and had not the indi- 

 vidual, by whom it was made, been honored by a British society with 

 a premium for the instrument which he miscalled his blowpipe. This 

 blowpipe ditTered immaterially from one of which he, Dr. Hare, had 

 published an engraving and description in Silliman's American Jour- 

 nal of Science for 1820, (Vol. H, page 298, fig. 3;) being a modifica- 

 tion of his blowpipe described in Vol. XIV, of Tilloch's Philosophical 

 Magazine for 1802. 



The only difference between the instruments described and repre- 

 sented in those publications, and that employed by Maugham, was that 

 the latter formed near the apex an acute angle, so as to be convenient 

 for directing the flame upon a cylinder of lime for producing the lime- 

 light. 



With a view to show this method of illumination, agreeably to the 

 process in which a revolving cylinder of lime is employed. Dr. Hare 

 stated that he had purchased one of the crooked blowpipes alluded to ; 

 hut he hadnever used it for any 'purpose, having found his own blow- 

 pipe above mentioned preferable, when the jet was directed obliquely 

 upwards. 



Unless cured of the crookedness, which was its only essential dis- 

 tinguishing attribute, the blowpipe used by Maugham was evidently 

 unfit for the fusion of any metal. Dr. Hare stated that he would not 

 undertake the fusion with it of an ounce of platinum ; and concluded 

 by saying, that whenever the process by which he had lately extended 

 the power of his blowpipe should be published, it would be seen that 

 however it might differ from those which he had previously contrived, 

 it differed still more from that which Maugham had appropriated to 

 himself. 



Prof. Bache informed the Society, that, in conjunction with Prof. 

 Rogers and Mr. Saxton on the nights of the 12th and 13th of Novem- 

 ber, and with Prof. Rogers and Mr, Walker on the 13th and 14th, he 

 had observed the number of meteors or shooting stars. The first night 



