Page:The chemical history of a candle.djvu/216

214 the candle, where the heat makes it glow like a spark. I have again and again tried this experiment upstairs in my own room, and have easily fused this platinum-wire by a common candle. You see we have, therefore, heat enough in the candle, as in the voltaic battery, or in the highly-exalted combustion of the blowpipe, but we do not supply a continuous source of heat. In the very act of this becoming ignited, the heat radiates so fast that you cannot accumulate enough to cause the fusion of the wire, except under the most careful arrangement. Thus I cannot melt that piece of antimony by simply putting it into the candle; but if I put it upon charcoal, and drive the fiery current against it, there will be heat enough to melt it. The beauty of the blowpipe is, that it sends hot air (making hot air by the combustion of the flame) against the thing to be heated. I have only to hold the antimony in the course of that current, and particle by particle of the current impinges upon the antimony, and so we get it melted. You now see it red-hot, and I have no doubt it will continue to burn if I withdraw it from the flame and continue