Page:The chemical history of a candle.djvu/215

Rh this piece in the ordinary lamp flame, I should do nothing; if I tried a smaller piece, I should do little or nothing; and if I tried a still smaller piece, I should do little or nothing; yet I have a condition which will represent what Deville carries to the highest possible extent, and which we all carry to the highest extent, in the use of the blowpipe. Suppose I take this piece of antimony: I shall not be able to melt it in that flame of the candle by merely holding it there; yet, by taking pains, we can even melt a piece of platinum there. This is a preparation which I made for the purpose of proving the fusibility of platinum in a common candle. There is a piece of wire, drawn by that ingenious process of Dr. Wollaston's, not more than the three-thousandth part of an inch in diameter. He put the wire into the middle of a cylinder of silver, and drew both together until the whole compound was exceedingly thin; and then he dissolved away the silver by nitric acid. There was left in the centre a substance which I can scarcely see with an eye-glass, but which I know is there, and which I can make visible, as you see, by putting it into