In 1820 Mr. Cecil, of Cambridge, proposed the employment of a mixture of air and hydrogen as a source of motive power; he gave a detailed account of his invention in the Transactions of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, together with some interesting theoretical considerations. The author observes here that an explosion may be safely opposed by an elastic resistance--that of compressed air, for example--if such resistance possesses little or no inertia to be brought into play; contrariwise, the smallest inertia opposed to the explosion of a mixture subjected to instantaneous combustion is equivalent to an insurmountable obstacle. Thus a small quantity of gunpowder, or a detonating mixture of air and hydrogen, may without danger be ignited in a large closed vessel full of air, because the pressure against the sides of the vessel exerted by the explosion is not more than the pressure of the air compressed by the explosion.

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