FLAME

(Germ, flam me.) When the temperature of inflammable gases or vapours is raised very high, and in the contact of air, they are said to burst into flame; if previously mixed with a due proportion of oxygen, or of atmospheric air, they explode. In the former case the combustion only goes on at the surface in contact with air, and is quiet and gradual; in the latter, every particle of the inflammable body being in contact with the supporter of combustion, the in flam in at i on extends instantaneously through the whole math. The nature of flame was first explained by Ilooke in 1677 (Ii his Lampas); but the relation of the light to the heat of flames, and the whole philosophy of their constitution, was first developed by Sir H.Davy in his researches published in the Philosophical Transactions between 1815 and 1817. All the leading phenomena of flame are well exhibited by a large gas -flame burning from a wide orifice. It presents a [s. 472]