It may not be improper to mention another application of alcohol, that of forming the _aphlogistic lamp_, or lamp that burns without flame. The following description of it, is given by Accum, in his _Chemical Amusements_, Am. Ed. p. 355. "In a common lamp, with a wick of about half a dozen common threads of cotton wick, used for lamps, put some good spirit of wine. Dispose the threads of wick, not intertwined, but straight and parallel to each other. Take platina wire of the thickness of 1/100th part of an inch; coil it round the wick, about nine coils below, and six coils standing above the top of the wick; the diameter or width of the coils should not be more than 3/20th, or 1/7th of an inch wide. Light the wick; and, when the coil of platina above the wick is red-hot, blow out the flame. There will then be a current of pure alcohol, gradually rising from the reservoir below, through the wick, sufficient to keep the upper coil of platina red-hot, until the whole of the alcohol is consumed. This lamp has kept constantly lighted during sixty hours. By means of it, a match, a bit of spunk, or candle may be lighted when wanted. The quantity of alcohol consumed is not much: about an ounce, or an ounce and a half during the night, from bed-time until morning will suffice." This article was added to Accum by Dr. Cooper. A figure of the lamp is in Brande's Chemistry. Dr. Comstock has a paper on the aphlogistic or flameless lamp, in Vol. IV. p. 328, of Silliman's _Journal of Science and Arts_, which contains some judicious and useful remarks. Sir H. Davy (_Journal of the Royal Institution_) has discovered, that the vapour of camphor answers the same purpose as alcohol. If a platinum wire be heated and laid upon camphor, it will continue to glow as long as any remains, and the wire will frequently light it up into flame. Davy found, that, in the slow combustion of alcohol, &c. an acid was generated, to which he gave the name of Lampic acid. Faraday and Daniel (_Journal of Science and the Arts_) have confirmed his conclusions. Dr. Marcet has proposed a method of producing an intense heat, by causing a current of oxygen gas to pass through the flame of alcohol. The construction of the lamp and gas-holder may be found in the _Archives des Découvertes_, Vol. vii, p. 61. _Sect. XXV. Of Fulminating Mercury._