Hare’s Blowpipe.. 283 
ing the blowpipe, interposing a small receptacle (like a wa- 
ter valve) between the reservoir and the place of exit. 
Cares more imperious prevented the execution of a plan 
which did not promise to be better than that 1 had before 
pursued successfully. 
Some time afterwards Sir Humphrey Davy’s discovery 
of the influence of narrow metallic apertures in impeding ex- 
plosions, encouraged Dr. Clark and others to hazard the use 
of a mixed stream of hydrogen and oxygen gas, ignited 
while flowing from a common Tecipient, instead of allowing 
them as I had done, to mix only during their efflux. ‘There 
is another immaterial difference in the modes of operating. 
In mine, hydrostatic pressure is employed to expel the gases 
from a vessel into which they are introduced as generated, 
or by means of a-bellows. In the new mode, being pump- 
ed into the recipient by one aperture, they flowed out at an- 
other in consequence of their elasticity. 
Dr. Clark pretends that the process he has employed is 
the best ; admitting this, would it afford him any excuse for 
taking so little notice of mine, or attributing the discovery 
of it to others, especially while professing to give a fair his- 
tory of the invention. 
If I may be allowed to compare small things with great, 
when Mr. Cruikshank and Sir H. Davy improved the gal- 
vanic apparatus by introducing the trough, or modifying and 
enlarging it, did they on that account forget that Volta was 
the inventor of the pile ? was it not still (though no longer 
a pile) called the Voltaic apparatus ? 
Dr. Clark, like many others of the same character, find- 
ing that he cannot prove himself and his associates to have 
the merit of originality, endeavours to deprive the real au- 
thor of it, and accordingly ascribes it to Lavoisier. Had 
this been stated in his first papers, his motives had been less 
questionable. But why does he not refer to his authorities ? 
In other cases he is very particular in making such refer- 
ences. 
We all know that with a view to recompose water, Lavoi- 
sler caused the gaseous constituents of this fluid to burn 
within a glass globe, mto which they entered by orifices re- 
mote from each other; but if he ever caused them to burn 
at a common orifice in the open air for the purpose of pro- 
ducing heat, wherefore is Dr. Clark the first and only per- 
