Page:The chemical history of a candle.djvu/199

Rh by a process which is analogous to the one that was followed in the case of platinum, namely, welding; for these divided grains of spongy platinum fraying been well washed and sunk in water for the purpose of excluding air, and pressed together, and heated, and hammered, and pressed again, until they come into a pretty close, dense, compact mass, did so cohere, that when the mass was put into the furnace of charcoal, and raised to a high temperature, the particles, at first infinitely divided—for they were chemically divided—adhered the one to the other, each to all the rest, until they made that kind of substance which you see here, which will bear rolling and expansion of every kind. No other process than that has hitherto been adopted for the purpose of obtaining this substance from the particles by solution, precipitation, ignition, and welding. It certainly is a very fine thing to see that we may so fully depend upon the properties of the various substances we have to deal with; that we can, by carrying out our processes, obtain a material like this, allowing of division and extension under a rolling mill—a material of the finest possible