VII. Some researches on flame

Abstract

I have described in three papers which the Royal Society have honoured with a place in their Transactions, a number of experiments on combustion which show that the explosion of gaseous mixtures can be prevented or arrested by various cooling influences, and which led me to discover a tissue per­meable to light and air, but impermeable to flame, on which I founded the invention of the wire gauze safe lamp now generally used in all collieries in which inflammable air pre­vails, for the preservation of the lives and persons of the miners. In a short notice published in the third number of the Journal of Science and the Arts, edited at the Royal In­stitution, I have given an account of some new results on flame, which show that the intensity of the light of flames depends principally upon the production and ignition of solid matter in combustion, and that the heat and light in this pro­cess are in a great measure independent phenomena. Since this notice has been printed, I have made a number of re­searches on flame: and as they appear to me to throw some new lights on this important subject, and to lead to some prac­tical views connected with the useful arts, I shall without any farther apology, present them to the Royal Society. That greater distinctness may exist in the details, I shall treat of my subjects under four heads. In the first I shall discuss the effects of rarefaction, by partly removing the pressure of the atmosphere upon flame and explosion. In the second, I shall consider the effects of heat in combustion. In the third, I shall examine the effect of the mixture of gaseous substances not concerned in combustion upon flame and explosion. In the fourth, I shall offer some general views upon flame, and point out certain practical and theoretical applications of the results.