Page:Experimental researches in chemistry and.djvu/289

274 pulled outwards by their extremities, will usually open, so that the platinum becomes single again. Then proceeding from corner to corner, the platinum will peel or strip easily from the sides of the glass, and will remain adhering by the bottom only. From time to time, as fragments of .glass are formed, they should be blown away or otherwise removed, that they may not cut the metal. If now the glass be placed a little over the edge of the table and firmly held, the platinum may gradually be separated from the bottom in the same manner as from the sides, and the glass and the metal finally divided from each other without any injury to the former, and very little to the latter.

93. Immediately upon the separation of the platinum, and before it can receive any mechanical injury beyond what it was impossible to avoid, it is to be put into a pickle consisting of 'nitric acid and water, and left there for several days. The dilute acid acts upon the adhering glass, dissolving and loosening it, and the plate is thus rendered fit for future operations (41). The stirrers also, when no longer required in an experiment, should be taken from their iron handles and put into the same pickling liquor. In this way the platinum is perfectly cleaned, and being afterwards washed carefully in pure water and ignited, is again ready for use.

94. Such is the nature of the process as practised at present, by which plates of heavy optical glass seven inches square and eight pounds in weight have been prepared. I am encouraged to believe that it will admit of improvement, perhaps even to the full extent of our desires; but it will require time and patience to effect it. As I have before said, we are in the course of our experiments only; and up to the last have seen reason to vary the arrangements, and still intend to make alterations. Everything agrees to convince me that the size of the plate is not a circumstance involving any additional difficulty; but that, on the contrary, it will probably be safer to make a large than a small experiment. We can at pleasure obtain a glass perfectly free from striæ, unexceptionable in hardness, and with less colour than crown glass; but it is the simultaneous absence of all striæ and bubbles, with at the same time that degree of hardness and colour which will render the glass fit for optical purposes, that I am aiming at, and that I trust shortly to obtain.

95. As soon as the plates of glass are removed from the