101 



ignition ensued. The supposed compound of cyanogen appears to be 

 an excellent conductor, and nothing could exceed the splendour of the 

 purple light emitted during its deflagration. It was too vivid, how- 

 ever, for more than a transient endurance by an eye unprotected by 

 deep coloured glasses. After the compound was adjudged to be suf- 

 ficiently deflagrated, and time had been allowed for refrigeration, on 

 lifting the receiver, masses were found upon the coal, which had a 

 metallic appearance, and which, when moistened, produced an efflu- 

 vium, of which the smell was like that which had been observed to be 

 generated under like circumstances, by the siliciuret of potassium. 



Similar results had been attained by the deflagration, in a like 

 manner, of a compound procured by passing cyanogen over quicklime, 

 enclosed in a porcelain tube heated to incandescence. 



Phosphuret of calcium, when carefully prepared, and subsequently 

 well heated, was found to be an excellent conductor of the voltaic 

 current, evolved from the apparatus abovementioned. Hence it was 

 thought expedient to expose it in the circuit of the deflagrator, both in 

 an atmosphere of hydrogen, and in vacuo. The volatilization of 

 phosphorus was so copious as to coat throughout the inner surface of 

 the glass receiver, with an opake film, in colour resembling that of 

 the oxide of phosphorus, generated by exposing this substance under 

 hot water, to a current of oxygen. 



The phosphuret at first contracted in bulk, and finally was for the 

 most part volatilized. On the surface of the charcoal adjoining the 

 cavity in which the phosphuret had been deflagrated, there was a light 

 pulverulent matter, which, thrown into water, effervesced, and when 

 rubbed upon a porcelain tile, appeared to contain metallic spangles, 

 which were oxidized by the consequent exposure to atmospheric 

 oxygen. 



In one of Dr. Hare's experiments with the apparatus desci-ibed, 

 portions of the carbon forming the anode appeared to have undergone 

 complete fusion, and to have dropped in globules upon the cathode. 



When rubbed, these globules had the colour and lustre of plumbago, 

 and by friction on paper, left traces resembling those produced by 

 that substance. They were insusceptible of reaction with chloro- 

 hydric or nitric acid, or with aqua regia. They were not, in the 

 slightest degree, magnetic. 



About 1822, Professor Silliman had obtained globules which were 

 by him considered as fused carbon, by others were deemed to be de- 



