244 B. Silliman, Jr., on the Combustion of Wet Fuel. 
purposes, is deserving of particular notice from a scientific as 
well as from a practical point of view. 
It is a well established fact in chemistry, that the affinity of 
carbon for oxygen, at high temperatures is so strong, that if 
oxygen is not present in a free state, any compound containing — 
oxygen, which happens to be present is decomposed, in order to 
satisfy this affinity. This fact is well illustrated in the familiar 
ease of the Blast Furnace where this affinity is employed to de- ~ 
prive the ores of iron of their oxygen in the process of reduction 
to metallic iron 
t 8 The controversl 
questions growing out of this invention, are entirely foreign 
our present purpose and in no way affect its practical or scientific 
value. Suffice it to say, in passing, that we find in this jnve- 
tion another instance of a truth already so often signalized in the 
history of inventions, that important results are often obtained, 
_ Mr. thompson seems to have been inspired with the conve, 
tion that if he could bring the products from the combustion © 
wet fuel together in a place, hot enough for the purpose, and from 
part of the furnace called by the inventor, the mixing chamber 
__ Wherever that cee may be situated, or however constructed, 
the one essential thing about it, is, that it should be a very, bet 
place, and one to which the atmospheric air can have 00 4 It 
access, until it has passed by, and through the burning fue 
- 
