296 Hare’s Blowpipe. 
the native grains of platina when subject to the gaseous 
flame on carbon, became quickly fused into an oblate sphe- 
roid as fluid as mercury. This spheroid after being cooled 
was exposed as before ; it became fluid in less than the 
fourth of a minute.” 
Hare, Ist part 6th Vol. Philosophical Transactions, page 
99, republished Annales de Chimie, Vol. 60, page 81. 
‘“¢ Being induced last winter to reinstate the apparatus by 
which these experiments were performed, I was enabled to 
confirm my judgment of the volatilization of platina by the 
observations of Dr’s. Woodhouse and Seybert; for in the 
presence of these skilful chemists I completely dissipated 
some small globules of this metal of about ihe tenth of an 
inch diameter. In fact I found platinum to be equally suas- 
ceptible of rapid volatilization, whether exposed in its na~ 
tive granular form, or in that of globules obtamed from the 
orange coloured precipitate of the nitro muriatic solution by 
the muriat of ammonia.” 
Silliman, page 3. ‘ Platinum was not only melted but 
volatilized with strong ebullition.’’* : 
Clark, page 92, ‘ The fusion of this metal owing to the 
great improvements here mentioned in the mode of using 
the gas blowpipe, is now become so easy that this metal 
melts faster than lead in acommon fire. It is no longer 
necessary to make use of wire in exhibiting its fusion and 
combustion. The cuttings which are sold by the manufac- 
turers of platinum utensils are placed in a cupel, either 
mounted ona stand or held in a pair of forceps. The 
mouth of the jet is bent downwards so as to admit of a per- 
pendicular direction of the gaseous flame upon the metal in 
the cupe!. The flame is then suffered to act upon the pla- 
tinum, about a quarter of an ounce of the metal being pla- 
ced in the cupel at first, as soon as this begins to melt more 
may be added until a cupel of the common size is nearly 
full of the boiling metal; and in this manner a mass of pla- 
tinum weighing half an ounce at the least, may be obtained 
in one brilliant bullet. This when rolled out so that all air 
* The fusion and combustion and complete dissipation of platinum, gold, 
silver, nickel. cobalt, and most of the metals, and the fusion of the priucipa! 
earths and of their most refractory compounds, by the use of Professor 
Hare’s compound blowpipe, have been the familiar and easy class experi- 
fr) ofevery course of chemistry in Yale College for these eight years. — 
D. 
