ON  THE  MANUFACTURE  OF  OXYGEN. 
145 
Without  this  stimulus,  few  men  would  employ  themselves  in 
perfecting  those  processes  upon  the  improvement  of  which  the 
progress  of  pharmacy,  as  well  as  of  kindred  arts,  so  entirely 
depends,  and  the  public  would  be  the  losers.— Pro(?.  Amer. 
Pharm.  Asw.,  1860. 
ON  THE  MANUFACTURE  OF  OXYGEN. 
By  mm.  H.  St.  Claire  Deville  and  H,  Debray. 
Commissioned  by  the  Russian  Government  to  study  the  dry 
treatment  of  platinum  ore,  and  the  revivification  of  this  precious 
metal  by  fusion  according  to  the  new  metallurgic  processes  pro- 
posed by  us^  we  have  directed  our  later  researches  to  the  econo- 
mical preparation  of  oxygen ;  and  feeling  convinced,  from  the 
point  to  which  we  have  brought  this  question,  that  manufactur- 
ing industry,  either  as  regards  lighting  or  the  working  of  metals, 
will  derive  benefit  from  our  experience,  we  extract  from  the  re- 
port addressed  by  us  to  the  Russian  Minister  some  brief  de- 
tails respecting  the  wholesale  manufacture  of  pure  oxygen. 
We  have  experimented  on  large  quantities  of  oxygen,  and 
have  successively  extracted  it  from  the  following  materials, 
viz.,  manganese,  chlorate  of  potash,  chloride  of  lime,  nitrate  of 
soda,  nitrate  of  baryta,  binoxide  of  barium,  sulphate  of  zinc, 
and  sulphuric  acid.  We  will  confine  our  remarks  here  to  the 
last  two  substances,  which  are  employed  for  the  first  time  to 
our  knowledge  in  the  extraction  of  oxygen.  We  will  first 
mention  that  we  have  repeated  on  considerable  quantities  of 
binoxide  of  barium  the  process  of  M.  Boussingault,  and  have 
obtained  the  same  results  as  that  gentleman,  though  meeting 
with  some  practical  difficulties,  which,  however,  can  easily  be 
surmounted  in  a  manufactory  as  soon  as  baryta  by  M.  Kuhl- 
mann's  operations  can  be  supplied  commercially  in  sufficient 
quantities,  and  at  a  low  rate,  in  the  anhydrous  state.  It  can 
then  be  easily  and  economically  utilised  for  the  production  of 
oxygen. 
Sulphate  of  zinc,  which  can  be  obtained  in  such  large  quan- 
tities by  the  action  of  the  galvanic  pile,  is  a  substance  not  much 
in  use  at  the  present  time  ;  all  its  elements  may  be  utilised  in 
10 
