LECTURE ON PLATINUM.
[Delivered before the Royal Institution, on Friday, February 22, 1861.]
WHETHER I was to have the honour of appearing before you this evening or not, seemed to be doubtful upon one or two points. One of these I will mention immediately; the other may or may not appear during the course of the hour that follows. The first point is this. When I was tempted to promise this subject for your attention this evening, it was founded upon a promise, and a full intent of performing that promise, on the part of my friend Deville, of Paris, to come here to shew before you a phenomenon in metallurgic chemistry not common. In that I have been disappointed. His intention was to have fused here some thirty or forty pounds of platinum, and so to have made manifest, through my mouth and
