10. The diamond presents a property peculiar to itself; it burns in the same manner with combustible bodies, and is entirely dissipated.

There is yet another manner of employing oxygen gas for considerably increasing the force of fire, by using it to blow a furnace. Mr Achard first conceived this idea; but the process he employed, by which he thought to dephlogisticate, as it is called, atmospheric air, or to deprive it of azotic gas, is absolutely unsatisfactory. I propose to construct a very simple furnace, for this purpose, of very refractory earth, similar to the one represented Pl. XIII. Fig. 4. but smaller in all its dimensions. It is to have two openings, as at E, through one of which the nozle of a pair of bellows is to pass, by which the heat is to be raised as high as possible with common air; after which, the stream of common air from the bellows being suddenly stopt, oxygen gas is to be admitted by a tube, at the other opening, communicating with a gazometer having the pressure of four or five inches of water. I can in this manner unite the oxygen gas from several gazometers, so as to make eight or nine cubical feet of gas pass through the furnace; and in this way I expect to produce a heat greatly more intense than any hitherto known. The upper orifice of the furnace must be carefully made of considerable dimensions, that the caloric produced may have free issue, lest the too sudden expansion of that highly elastic fluid should produce a dangerous explosion.

FINIS.

APPENDIX.

No. I.

Table for Converting Lines, or Twelfth Parts of an Inch, and Fractions of Lines, into Decimal Fractions of the Inch.

Twelfth Parts of a Line.Decimal Fractions.Lines.Decimal Fractions.
10.0069410.08333
20.0138920.16667
30.0208330.25000
40.0277840.33333
50.0347250.41667
60.0416760.50000
70.0486170.58333
80.0555680.66667
90.0625090.75000
100.06944100.83333
110.07639110.91667
120.08333121.00000