﻿92 Canadian Record of Science. 



Comptes Rendus of the French Academy of Sciences hy a 

 young chemist, Henri Moissan, who had already distin- 

 guished himself l)y the discovery of fluorine. One of the 

 first results which this new instrument gave in liis hands 

 was the artificial production of diamonds n>ade by dis- 

 solving carbon in iron, and he then undertook a complete 

 .study of the formation of the carbides of the metals. 

 Moissan's paper which interests us most directly was pub- 

 lished on the 5th of March, 1894. It contains a full 

 account of the formation of pure crystallized carbide 

 of calcium and of its reactions with oxygen, sulphur, 

 chlorine, etc., and a complete account of the formation of 

 acetylene by the action of water upon the carbide, and 

 nothing of scientific interest has since been added to the 

 chemistry of acetylene, except some few experiments in 

 European lalx)ratories, notably upon its silver compounds. 



French physicists ha^'e, however, made some very im- 

 portant measures of the thermic conditions which preside 

 over the formation and decomposition of acetylene. They 

 are a continuation of the admiraljle study of this singular 

 gas, which was begun by Berthelot in 1859, and we shall 

 find them of great value for explaining the properties 

 which make acetylene useful or dangerous as an illumi- 

 nant. The lecture will be confined strictly to the state- 

 ment of facts which bear upon the proposed new gas 

 industry, and no place can be given to the long-known 

 laboratory process for making acetylene, and to many 

 experiments which display its generar properties. 



The idea of using this laboratory product upon a com- 

 mercial scale originated in the United States, and the 

 merit of it is due to Mr. T. L. Willson and Messrs. Dick- 

 -erson and Suckert, wlio have secured patents ; but it is 

 important to insist upon the fact that they are not the 

 discoverers of the crystalline carbide of calcium, nor of 

 its transformation to acetylene and to hydrate of calcium. 

 Moissan's pu])lication of March 5, 1894, antedates their 



