Abstract
A CORRESPONDENT to your last number has troubled himself to propound an elaborate theory, to account for the blue tinge which he states is always exhibited by the flame of hydrogen. There are also several text-books on chemistry which assert that hydrogen burns with a characteristic faint blue flame. It is easy to prove, however, that the flame of pure hydrogen has no blue tinge whatever. The blueness so frequently associated with the flame of hydrogen is really due to the presence of sulphur as is shown in a little paper I published in the Philosophical Magazine for November 1865.* It is possible that the facts mentioned in that paper may be turned to a practical end by some of your readers, and therefore it may not be altogether useless if I put down—for such disposal as you deem proper—one or two interesting phenomena associated wiih the combustion of hydrogen.
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BARRETT, W. On the Colour of a Hydrogen Flame. Nature 5, 461 (1872). https://doi.org/10.1038/005461d0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/005461d0
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