ARTICLE XI 



Improved Process for obtaining Potassium. By Robert Hare^ M. />., 

 Professor of Chemistry in the University of Pennsylvania. Bead 

 December 7, 1838. 



In evolving potassium, agreeably to Ennmer's plan, I have substi- 

 tuted for the luting usually employed to protect the iron bottle, a cy- 

 linder of iron, which is made to surround the bottle; also a disk of the 

 same metal, of a diameter and thickness equal to that of the cylinder. 



The disk is supported by bricks of Kaolin. The bottle being verti- 

 cal, the blast acts more equably on the surface of the iron, and the 

 operator can, by additional fuel, protect any part from that undue ex- 

 posure, to which the under surface is always liable, when the bottle is 

 horizontal. 



The potassium is received into an iron tube, of which the bore is 

 two inches in diameter. This tube screws at one end into the bottle, 

 and at the other is closed by a perforated plug, terminating in a small 

 orifice. To this a leaden tube is fitted, which is so adjusted by bend- 

 ing, as to cause the vapour resulting from the burning of the gas, to go 

 into the ash-hole. By these means the hydrogen, being ignited as soon 

 as it comes over, serves as an index of the success and progress of the 

 process. In this way no resort to naphtha is in the first instance ne- 

 cessary. The potassium is extricated from the tube by cooling it by 

 affusion of water, detaching it from the bottle, and then closing the 



