Abstract
THE distinguished metallurgist who has held this lecturership since the foundation of the Royal School of Mines, concluded the introductory lecture he delivered more than a quarter of a century ago2 by pointing out to the students who were then beginning their course that βin proportion to the success with which the metallurgic art is practised in this country will the interests of the whole population, directly or indirectly, in no inconsiderable degree be promoted.β This is a fact that none of his students are likely to forget.
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References
By Prof. W. Chandler Roberts, F.R.S., Chemist of the Mint. Condensed by the Author.
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I am indebted to my friend Prof. Ferguson, M.A., of the University of Glasgow, whose eminence as a historian of chemistry is well known, for several interesting additional facts in connection with the calcination of metals. After referring to Eck (1480), Glauber (1651), and others, he writes: "One of the most curious passages I know is in the Hippocrates Chemicus of Otto Tachen, or Tachenius, a German who lived at Venice and published his book there in 1666. He describes how lead, when burnt to minium, increases in weight. This increase he ascribes to a substance of acid character in the wood used for burning, and then, by a very curious course of argument, based on the saponifying powers of litharge, makes out that lead is of the nature of or contains an alkali, which combines with the occult acid of the fat. This is a curious anticipation of n very modern classification which brings lead into relationship with the alkalies and alkaline earths, as well as of Chevreul's investigations."
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Figures convey but little impression as to such high temperatures; but it may be mentioned that Dewar has given 7000Β° C. as approximately the temperature of the electric arc (Brit. Assoc. Rep. 1873, p. 466), and, according to Rossetti, the true temperature of the sun can hardly be less than 10,000Β° C. or more than 20,000Β° C.βPhil- Mag. [5], vol. viii. p. 550 (1879).
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Introductory Lecture to the Course of Metallurgy at the Royal School of Mines 1 . Nature 23, 65β69 (1880). https://doi.org/10.1038/023065b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/023065b0
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