226 
His mecliamcal knowledge caused him to be soon removed 
to become manager at the Plate Glass Works of Messrs. 
Pilkington at St. Helens, in which a large amount of 
machinery was used; but as there was some chemical 
knowledge needed also, and as there was a Laboratory at 
the works, he was not slow in taking advantage of the 
opportunity and reviving the love of chemical experiments. 
This caused another step in his life, and he was made 
manager in the Alkali Works of Mr. Hutchinson, who 
began, one may say, in the town of Widnes. At that place he 
entered into partnership in 1855 with Mr. Gaskell, who was 
a partner in the firm at Patricroft. The works which they 
then built have been, and still are, carried on by the firm of 
Gaskell, Deacon, and Co., one of the largest of the kind. 
Mr. Deacon will probably be best known in connexion 
with the process for making Chlorine by the decomposition 
of Muriatic Acid acting under heat upon a Salt of Copper. 
The process is continuous, and was believed to come under 
the category of those which by Berzelius were called 
“ Catalytic.” 
It is said that among other circumstances connected with 
his early life in Faraday’s laboratory, Mr. Deacon dwelt 
with interest upon a question put to him by that philoso- 
pher, namely, “ How is it that snow disappears when the 
temperature of the ground and of the air are both below 
the freezing point ?” — and he held that the course of reason- 
ing which this produced led him after many years to the 
invention of the new process for making Chlorine. In a 
paper which he read before the Chemical Society he sums up 
his views in the following manner (Journal of the CJiem. 
Soc., vol. X,, 1872) : 
I. “With the same mixture of Gases and at the same 
temperature the amount of Hydrochloric Acid decomposed 
by the aid of a molecule of Copper Salt in a given time 
depends upon the number of times the molecules of the 
