The light emitted from burning gases which burn with bright flame is known to be a secondary phenomenon. It is the solid, or even liquid, constituents separated out by the high temperature of combustion, and rendered incandescent, that emit the light rays. Gases, on the other hand, which produce no glowing solid or liquid particles during combustion burn throughout with a weakly luminous flame of bluish or other color, according to the kind of gas. Now, it is common to say, merely, in explanation of this luminosity, that the gas highly heated in combustion is self-incandescent. This explanation, however, has not been experimentally confirmed. Dr. Werner Siemens was, therefore, led recently to investigate whether highly-heated pure gases really emit light.
The temperature employed in such experiments should, to be decisive, be higher than those produced by luminous combustion. The author had recourse to the regenerative furnace used by his brother, Friedrich, in Dresden, in manufacture of hard glass. This stands in a separate room which at night can be made perfectly dark. The furnace has, in the middle of its longer sides, two opposite apertures, allowing free vision through.

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