Remarks upon Fused Charcoal. — 147 
Art. XIV.—Remarks upon Prof. Vanuxem’s paper on fused 
charcoal, published in Vol. 1V. p. 371, of the Journal of 
the Acad. of Nat. Sci. at Philadelphia. 
Pror. Vanuxem has examined, chemically, a portion of 
matter obtained from charcoal, by Dr. Macneven, by the 
use of Dr. Hare’s Deflagrator, and finds it composed, (as 
to a little more than one half,) of iron and silex. ‘Ts weight 
was only 0.385 of a grain or less than four tenths of a grain, 
and on even this small portion there was a loss of nearly 
one half. 
Mr. Vanuxem has not done me the honour to mention 
me, or my experiments, but as no other person (within my 
knowledge) has published any thing on the fusion of char- 
coal, I am obliged, however reluctantly, to appropriate his 
ake and to consider them as intended to invalidate 
some part of the resu{ts which | have published. 
The substance upon which Mr. Vanuxem operated, is, ev- 
idently, from his description of its properties, a different 
thing, in most respects, from the greater part of the fused 
masses which I obtained, and if he will take the trouble at- 
tentively to peruse my several papers, in the fifth and sixth 
volumes of this Journal, he will observe that there was much 
variety in the products, and that | was myself not unaware, 
that earthy, alkaline, or other foreign matter might have 
contributed to, at least, some of the results. 
Iam not disposed to question, that the silex and iron, 
obtained by Professor Vanuxem, existed in the matter 
transmitted by Prof. Macneven, but, when this matter is 
acted upon by so powerful an agent as hot nitric acid, 
and there is found to be so serious a loss as 1.05 out 
of 2.50 we are surprised that no means were taken, to 
collect the gaseous products, and to ascertain whether car- 
bonic acid was not formed? No means to consume and 
waste the carbon, could be better devised, than those em- 
ployed by Mr. Vanuxem. If we contrast the nega- 
tive fact that he obtained no evidence of the existence of 
carbon, when it is obvious that in the way in which he 
proceeded, it was impossible he should discover it, even if 
it existed in large proportion—if we contrast this pro- 
cedure, with the positive result, obtained by myself, when 
nitions 
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