Hare’s Blowpipe. 297 
holes being removed the mass possesses a uniform density 
will be found to have a specific gravity equal to 20,857. 
During the fusion of the metal its combustion will be often 
if not “alway apparent. It will burn with scintillation and 
particles of the black protoxide of platinun, if care be used, 
may be caught upon a sheet of white paper while the com- 
bustion Is going on.” 
He would here evidently wish the reader to adopt the 
false impression that the facility with which platinum may 
be fused is owing to “ the great improvements” made four- 
feen or fifteen years after I had devised and used them. 
Will Britons tolerate such conduct in their professors ? 
Silliman, last page. The experiments which have now 
been related in connexion with the original ones of Mr. 
Hare sufficiently show that science is not a little indebted to 
that gentleman for his ingenious and beautiful invention. It 
was certainly a happy thought and the result of very philo- 
sophical views of combustion, to suppose that a highly com- 
bustible gaseous body by intimate mixture with oxygen gas 
must when kindled produce intense heat, and it is no doubt 
to this capability of perfectly intimate mixture between 
these two bodies and to their great capacity for heat, that | 
the effects of the compound blowpipe are in a great measure 
to be ascribed. ; 
Clark, Journal Royal Institution, page 122. ‘I consid- 
er this improvement of the blowpipe, one of the most valu- 
able discoveries for the sciences of chemistry and mineralo- 
gy that have yet been made “and thus does he modestly 
claim to his modification the whole merit of the discovery, 
for it must be observed, he does not in saying improvement 
on the blowpipe,” allude to the compound blowpipe con- 
trived by me but to the ordinary blowpipe of the mechanic 
er mineralogist. Other instances might be adduced, but it 
is presumed that more than enough has been brought for- 
ward to shew, that if the merit of this invention is to be 
awarded according to the motto of “ suum cuique”’ adopted 
by Dr. Clark, there would be little left for himself and his 
eoadjutors. 
I subjoin a few drawings of the compound blowpipe in 
its different forms, and of some varieties of apparatus which 
may be used for supplying it with hydrogen and oxygen 
gas. 
