acicular crystals and in a fused mass, and was very deliquescent. This chloride was placed in layers in a platinum crucible with intervening layers of flattened potassium, the cover fixed on with a wire, and the crucible heated in a spirit-lamp. At the moment of reduction the crucible became white hot; when cold, it was opened and turned upside down into a large glass containing water, which dissolved out chlorides of potassium and glucinum, and left the metal glucinum as a greyish black powder, which was then separated on a filter, washed and dried.

In this state glucinum has the appearance of a finely-divided metal, and, when burnished, acquires a dull metallic lustre. It presents no appearance of fusion. It is not oxidized either in air or water at temperatures below 212° Fah. Ignited on platina foil it burns brightly into glucina. In oxygen gas the combustion is very vivid, but still no signs of fusion. It dissolves when heated in the sulphuric, nitric, or muriatic acid, or in solution of potash. It burns when heated in chlorine, bromine, or iodine vapour, forming volatile chloride, bromide, or iodide. It easily combines with sulphur, forming a sulphuret, a seleniuret, a phosphuret; and an arseniuret may also be formed in the same manner.

Yttrium. The yttria was obtained from gadolinite, and converted into a chloride by charcoal, chlorine, and heat, as before. The chloride is volatile, and resembles the similar compound of glucinum. It was found exceedingly difficult to obtain the yttria pure; and, whilst forming the chloride, generally a little sulphur and potassium appeared in one or other part of the operation.

The chloride was decomposed by potassium in a crucible, as before, with vivid incandescence; and dissolving the result in water, the yttrium was obtained in small scales, having a perfect metallic lustre and grey black colour. It is easily distinguished from glucinum and aluminum by its metallic and crystalline appearance. When burnished, it acquires a perfect lustre, but its colour and metallic appearance do not equal those of aluminum-one is to the other, perhaps, as iron to tin. Aluminum appears to be a ductile metal; yttrium, on the contrary, brittle. Yttrium does not become oxidized by air or water at ordinary temperatures. Heated to redness in the air it burns into yttria: in oxygen it burns vividly, and then gives traces of fusion. It dissolves in sulphuric acid and in solution of potassa. It burns in the vapour of sulphur, producing a sulphuret. It forms also a seleniuret and a phosphuret.

From these and former experiments it results, that the bases of alumina, glucina, and yttria, are metals which, at ordinary tem'peratures, do not act upon air or water, but decompose water when acids or alkalies are present, and burn vividly in oxygen, chlorine, bromine, iodine, sulphur, selenium, and phosphorus.Ann. de Chimie, xxxix. 77.

21. Sulphuret of Silica.-M. Buchner mixed equal parts of silica and sulphur by trituration; the mixture was put into a small glass

retort, and exposed to a moderate heat for several hours." The product was a porous grey mass, from which caustic potash separated only a minute portion of sulphur, and left a few grains of quartz. The alkaline solution deposited a fine black powder, which is the compound in question.-Phil. Mag., N. S. ii. 234.

22. Observations relative to Alumina, by M. Hollunder.-The solution of alumine in nitric acid is readily decomposed by the influence of the atmosphere, even at ordinary temperatures, although elevation of temperature increases the effect; it is most rapid when free acid is present. The flocculent substance precipitated is supposed to be aluminum, oxidized to a higher degree than the alumina obtained by ordinary process; for at the same time the nitric acid undergoes decomposition, and the oxide obtained is much more insoluble than ordinary alumina. Muriatic, nitric, and sulphuric acids, and also the alkalies, only dissolve it partially, and that with difficulty, a great excess of the solvent being required.

It is supposed that a similar per-oxygenation of alumina is occasioned by other oxidizing means, such as a red heat, or the action of nitre at a high temperature, &c.-Kastner's Archives. Bull. Univ. A. x. 313.

23. Manufacture of Alum.-It has been remarked by M. D'Arcet, in regard to this manufacture, that heat has great influence over the form of the resulting salt. When cubical alum is dissolved, and its solution heated to temperatures above 110° Fah., a precipitate of sub-sulphate of alumina is produced, and the solution will now yield only octoedral crystals. Hence may be deduced the means of producing either octoedral or cubical alum at pleasure. Roman alum is crystallized in cubes, which is a consequence of the construction of the furnaces at La Tolfa. These are so constructed that they do not allow the solution to attain a higher temperature than 104° Fah.-Industriel, 1828.

24. On a Test for various Organic Principles in Microscopic Chemistry, by M. Raspail.-In a letter read to the Academy of Sciences, last October, M. Raspail describes certain effects produced by the action of sulphuric acid on vegetable matter, which he had observed by the microscope, and which he considers as enabling him to ascertain, in many cases, the chemical nature of the smallest quantity of organic matter which can thus be made visible. On placing an ovarium of Avena sativa in sulphuric acid, the different parts gave way very differently, some immediately dissolving without producing colour, others producing a fine purple colour, and others again not being altered in colour or acted upon in two days. Being led to conclude that these different appearances depended upon the presence of different substances in different parts, he tried such bodies as gum, sugar, albumen, starch, resin, &c. Separately none of these bodies gave the purple colour to the acid,

Trying them two and two together, so soon as sugar and albumen of egg were put to sulphuric acid, the purple colour was produced.

In an experiment with a fragment of the perisperme of a ripe grain in sulphuric acid the colour was produced; but besides, very curious and active motions were remarked, and little drops sepa rated from the fragment, also purple, and moving about: these being suspected to be oil, a drop of olive oil was put into sulphuric acid, and the same movements were observed, but without the purple colour; the addition of a little sugar, however, immediately produced the colour. It was then supposed that albumen only produced colour with the sugar, because of the oil it contained; and some albuminous fibres, well boiled in water, to separate all the oil possible, gave little or no colour to sulphuric acid and sugar, though before they gave it abundantly.

Hence M. Raspail concludes that the acid may be used microscopically as a test for sugar, albumen, oil, and resin. Thus, placing a vegetable organ, fresh, or having been preserved in water, in a drop of strong sulphuric acid, if it be observed to give a yellow colour to the acid, but to yield no oily drops, and occasion no motion, then it consists either of resin or sugar; adding a drop of oil, or white of egg to it, if it become instantly coloured purple, the change proves that the substance was sugar. If no purple colour is thus produced, a drop of concentrated solution of sugar is added to a similar preparation of sulphuric acid and the substance experimented with, and if no colour is obtained, then the principle dissolved must be resin. If oily drops are obtained in these experiments, the sulphuric sugar will render them purple; if the acid and the substance produce no colour, and cause no motion, but a purple colour is obtained by sugar, then the principle present is considered as albumen; or if it be from the vegetable kingdom, gluten, which is considered as vegetable albumen.

Examining in this way both animal and vegetable tissues, M. Raspail states, that all the parts of the fœtus, of its enveloping membranes, and of the uterus itself, in the animal, correspond in chemical composition, i. e. in their action with sulphuric acid, with the similar parts of the vegetable creation, and that sugar accompanies the albumen around the new individual, or the point at which its formation commences in the one kingdom as well as the other.

These phenomena of coloration disappear so soon as the acid is diluted, either purposely, or by attracting water from the atmosphere; a point which of course requires attention in the prosecution of these and similar experiments.-Bull. Univ. A. x. 267.

25. On the Fatty Matter of Wool.-The following facts are taken from a long memoir by M. Chevreul, on the principal varieties of wool, having for object their immediate composition, for the purpose of ascertaining the influence of foreign matters which might be present in them M. Chevreul obtained 18 hundredths, at least,

of a fatty matter from Merino wool, which had previously been well washed in pure water. This matter is formed of two distinct principles, which differ from each other in their degrees of liquefaction. The one, at ordinary temperatures, is like wax; whilst the other, in similar circumstances, is like turpentine. Each is susceptible of forming an emulsion with water, and in this respect differs from stearine and oleine, and resembles the fatty matter of brain.

When heated with solution of potash, in such a manner that oleine and stearine would have been saponified, these substances exhibited no appearance of that change. They did not appear to con. tain any azote, and in that point differ from the fatty matter of brain. It is singular, that woollen cloth which has been deprived of 18 hundredths of its weight of fatty matter, does not appear more apt to become dyed than it was before; though the contrary might have been supposed, from the known necessity of removing the grease from wool before dyeing it. Wool, which has lost its fatty matter, contains the sulphur which is observed in that which has not had the former principle separated; and in either state, the wool treated by alum and tartar disengages a little sulphuretted hydrogen,

It is this sulphur contained in wool which causes the production of colour, when the wool is heated in a solution of acetate of lead; or in acetate of alumina, containing a little acetate of lead; or still more strongly in protochloride of tin, &c.-Ann. de l'Industrie, i. 422.

26. Specific Gravity of Solutions of Sugar.-The specific gravity is taken at 64° F. The solutions are formed of one part of sugar in as many parts of water as are expressed in the following table:→

27. Ceric Acid.-When wax is acted on by alkalies, a species of soap is formed. If this soap be distilled with dilute sulphurie acid, there passes over, according to M. Pfaff, a liquid which is acid, and peculiar, and which contains no sulphuric acid; it is powerful enough to decompose carbonates, and has been distin guished as ceric acid.

28. Preparation of Alizarine, a colouring principle of Madder. -The following processes and chemical points in the history of this substance are from a paper by M. Zenneck. To prepare alizarine, the madder in powder is to be macerated in cold water and filtered; the solid part mixed with a little yeast and water, fermented, then filtered and pressed; the solid residue is then to be digested in alcohol so long as a coloured tincture is obtained; the alcoholic liquors put together, distilled until three-fourths have passed over, and the remaining fourth precipitated by diluted sulphuric acid; the

red-brown precipitate is to be collected, dried, and afterwards sub limed.

Or ten parts of the finely powdered madder may be digested with four parts of ether, in a close flask; the clear solution distilled until the residue is thick like a syrup, and then this dried upon plates in the open air; the residue is to be powdered and sublimed.

The sublimation is to be effected in a watch glass, or a metallie capsule, covered by a very low cone, on to which the vapours are to be condensed; the layer of matter to be sublimed must be thin, and the distance through which the vapours have to pass as small as possible; a little cotton should be placed at the orifice in the summit of the condensing cone, and the heat applied be moderate, especially at the commencement.

Alizarine, well sublimed, is in very brilliant, diaphanous, yellowish red, acicular, quadrangular crystals; they are soft, flexible, heavier than water; have an acid taste, soften when heated, sublime at the temperature of boiling oil, and then occasion a peculiar aromatic odour. It is nearly insoluble in cold water; one pound of boiling water dissolves about one grain of it. At common temperature, one part dissolves in 210 of alcohol, and in 160 of ether. It combines with and dissolves in alkalies, forming violet solutions; and, in fact, has all the properties of an acid. It even passes to the positive pole of the voltaic pile; and when boiled with metallic zinc, causes its oxidation, and then unites with it; 100 parts combine with, and saturate 350 parts of oxide of lead; so that it has a greater saturating power than oxalic acid. Its composition per cent. is given as 18 carbon, 20 hydrogen, and 62 oxygen. Annalen der Physik, 1828, p. 261.

29. Sanguinari, a New Vegeto-Alkali.-M. Dana obtains this substance by the following process from the Sanguinaria canadensis, L. called in America blood-root. The powdered root is to be digested in pure alcohol for some time; a little ammonia added to the tincture obtained, and the latter then poured into water; the brownish precipitate is to be collected, mixed with powdered charcoal, washed with boiling water, and thrown upon a filter. The mixture on the filter collected and acted upon by alcohol yields a solution, which, by evaporation, leaves the Sanguinaria in a pearly, white, solid state. This substance is acrid; it reddens tincture of litmus, and combines with acids, neutralizing them, and forming red salts: it is insoluble in water, very soluble in alcohol and ether, and, by exposure to air, acquires a yellow colour. It appears to exist in the plant combined with a peculiar acid.-Hensman's Rep. der Chem.: Phil. Mag. N. S. v. 151.

III. NATURAL HISTORY.

1. Natural Nitrogen Springs.-Nitrogen gas issues in almost a pure state from the earth on John Bradt's farm, in Hoosick, just