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ACADEMY OF SCIENCES.
October 16.

M. BOURSINGAULT continued his memoir " On the Respira-
tion of Leaves." In the dark, leaves produce carbonic
acid, which mixes with the surrounding atmosphere if the
parenchyma is not thick and moist enough to retain it, as
is the case with some plants. In former experiments the
author determined the amount of oxygen produced in the
light by a given extent of leaf under the influence of car-
bonic acid, and he now gives the amounts of carbonic acid
emitted in the dark. It is seen from these experiments
that for an equal extent of surface and in an equal space
of time a leaf decomposes much more carbonic acid in the
light than it forms in the dark. Eighteen experiments
show that a square metre of leaf (oleander leaves were
employed) will decompose in sunlight on the average 1108
litres of carbonic acid per hour. Four experiments, how-
ever, showed that the same extent of leaf only formed
0'07 litre of carbonic acid in the dark. Thus leaves placed
in carbonic acid in sunlight produce in the end a respirable
atmosphere. But in darkness, they after a time lose the
power of decomposing carbonic acid, and although they
remain green and are to all appearance healthy, they are
dead. Their death must be attributed to the absence of
oxygen, the presence of which is indispensable to the
elaboration of carbonic acid by slow combustion or respi-
ration: the leaves, in fact, die asphyxiated. Nothing of
the sort happens when leaves are secluded in a respirable
atmosphere. In this they preserve their vitality, and the
same leaf will alternately produce oxygen in the presence
of carbonic acid and carbonic acid in the presence of oxygen.
M. J. Pelouze made a communication "On Aventurine
coloured with Chromium." The author gives the following
proportions for the preparation of a glass comparable with
Venetian aventurine :-
:-

Sand. Carbonate of soda

99

lime

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50 39 40 99

Bichromate of potash The glass is full of exceedingly brilliant crystals, which reflect light like the diamond. It is extremely hard, and will scratch ordinary glass. This hardness adds greatly to its value for artistic purposes.

M. Pelouze presented another note "On the Colouration of Glass by Selenium." Some months ago (see CHEMICAL NEWS, vol. xi., p. 250) the author showed that the yellow colour of ordinary glass was due to the presence of sulphur and sulphides coming from the reduction of sulphates present in some ingredients. He was now anxious to ascertain whether selenium would communicate any, and what, colour to glass. Experiment proved that it gives a beau tiful orange tint, resembling that of some varieties of topaz, and zircon hyacinth. One per cent. of the metalloid will produce the effect. Thus the analogies between sulphur and selenium extend to their reaction on the earthy and alkaline silicates.

M. Scheurer-Kestner presented a note " On the Theory of M. Dumas concerning the preparation of Soda by Le Blanc's Process." It was a reply to some observations made by M. Dumas after the reading of M. Kopp's memoir on the utilisation of soda waste. M. Dumas believes in the pre

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sence in soda waste of a compound of lime, and sulphide of calcium insoluble in cold water, and observed that the analyses of M. Kopp confirmed his views on the production of carbonate of soda by Le Blanc's process. M. Scheurer-Kestner states that his analyses prove that the residues do not contain an oxysulphide, but are made up of a mixture in variable proportions of oxide, carbonate, and sulphide of calcium, and he adds that it is impossible to represent the composition of the residues by any formula. The composition of the waste will necessarily vary according to the proportions of the chalk and sulphate used in the manufacture, and the relations between the sulphur and the calcium in the waste can always be calculated in advance. We have no space at present for more of this note.

[We may state here that we have received a letter from M. Kopp, who complains of our notice of his recent memoir as "a little too severe." We extremely regret that our esteemed correspondent should have so interpreted our remarks. In our next we shall publish his letter, which is, however, in places, difficult to decipher.] M. Gal communicated a study of "Some New Compounds Formed by Hydrocyanic Acid." One of these is the compound of hydriodic and hydrocyanic acid, a description of which, by M. Gautier, is given in another place. M. Gal also describes a compound with hydrobromic acid. This author's views of the constitution of these compounds differ somewhat from that of M. Gautier. He considers that they may be regarded as belonging to the type NX,. Hydrocyanic acid belongs to the type NX3, and the molecule of hydriodic acid comes in to complete the saturation of the nitrogen.

M. A. Semenoff presented a note "On the Mono- and Dihydriodate of Allylene and Acetylene." Allylene combines almost instantaneously with hydriodic acid if the gas employed is perfectly pure and the acid very concentrated. The result is always dihydriodate of allylene,

HI, a heavy liquid with faint aromatic and bituminous odour, having the sp. gr. 24458 at o. This is isomeric with iodide of propylene. To prepare the monohydriodate the author digested the above-mentioned with an equivalent of potash in alcoholic solution, and distilled in a water bath. It is a very volatile, colourless liquid, of a strong but agreeable odour, boiling as 82°, and having the sp. gr. 18346 at 0°. It is isomeric with iodide of allyle.

Acetylene combines but slowly with hydriodic acid, and forms a mixture of mono- and dihydriodate. The monohydriodate was prepared in the same way as the corresponding compound of allylene. The monohydriodate of acetylene is a very volatile liquid, colourless, and of an agreeable odour, boiling at 62°. Analysis showed it to have the composition II. It is easily seen that this body is isomeric with monoiodated ethylene, but not identical, for the ethylene compound boils at 56°. Monohydriodate of allylene is probably isomeric, but not identical with monoiodated propylene.

NOTICES OF BOOKS.

Int. oduction to Modern Chemistry, Experimental and Theoretic. By A. W. HOFMANN, F.R.S., LL.D., &c. London: Walton and Maberly. 1865.

THIS work is, beyond comparison, the most masterly and luminous exposition of the modern philosophical doctrines of chemistry that has hitherto fallen under our notice. Dealing with subjects essentially abstruse and intricate, and rendered still more difficult of treatment by the transitional state of opinion at present prevailing in the chemical world, the collaborating authors have succeeded in impressing upon their work a unity of conception, a cogency of demonstration, and a felicitous harmony of style, that fascinate the least attentive reader, and lead him on, with

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the new doctrines have acquired a logical consistency, and a consequent ascendancy throughout Europe, auguring at length for our long-agitated science a period of comparative calm."

scarcely an effort, from the first to the last page of the book. In twelve discourses, of barely twenty pages each, is compressed a succinct yet perfect outline of the great philosophical edifice whose foundations were laid upwards of a century and a half ago by Homberg, extended We cannot better convey to our readers an idea of the in the course of the following century by Wenzel and scope and purport of this work than by the following Richter, and completed during the present century by the further extracts from the preface. After referring to the imperishable labours of Dalton, Wollaston, Gay-Lussac,"stormy controversial period" from which chemistry is Proust, Berzelius, Dulong and Petit, Mitscherlich, Laurent, but just emerging, as one during which the lecturer's Gerhardt, Dumas, Regnault, Hermann Kopp, Ampère, teachings have often seemed "to resemble those dissolving Liebig, Cannizzaro, Deville, Wurtz, Odling, Kékulé, scenes which, at a certain moment, present two landscapes, Williamson, Frankland, Cahours, and (last not least) the one in the act of melting away, while the other is unfoldauthor-in-chief of the work before us. ing itself to view," the writer proceeds to say,—

From the writings of these and other illustrious philosophers (for our enumeration is by no means exhaustive), from their experimental researches, their instructive controversies, their innumerable discoveries of fact, and generalisations of law, our authors have collected the leading principles which constitute, in their ensemble, the doctrine of the Modern Chemical School,-we had almost written, of the modern chemical Revolution.

This very expression is, indeed, employed in the preface of the work before us, to characterise the latter portion of the great Philosophical Movement in question:

"No chemist will need to be reminded that, during the last quarter of a century, the science of chemistry has undergone a profound transformation; attended, during its accomplishment, by struggles so convulsive, as to represent what, in political parlance, would be appropriately termed a Revolution.

"Amidst continual accessions of fact, so rapid, so voluminous, and so heterogeneous, as almost to exceed the grasp of any single mind, chemical science has been in travail, so to speak, with new laws and principles of coordination, engendered, perhaps, partly by the sheer force of their own deeply-felt necessity, but partly also, and mainly due, to the powerful initiative impulsion of a few philosophical master minds.

"Based on the concurrent examination of the volumetric and ponderal combining-ratios of certain typical elements, and on the discovery, in their standard combinations, of a few well-marked structural types, these principles have introduced into the domain of chemistry the pregnant idea of Classification-the conception of a series of natural groups, resembling the gencra of the biological sciences, and culminating in the establishment of an orderly system, where before there had seemed to be but a chaos of disconnected facts.

"Under the influence of these and certain other cognate ideas, new views have arisen as to the constitution and chemical properties of matter; a reformed chemical notation has thence of necessity ensued; and structural relations, previously unsuspected, have disclosed identity of parentage in compounds till then deemed utterly diverse. "It appears to be wisely ordered, in scientific as in social affairs, that the innovating spirit which belongs to youth has its check and counterpoise in the conservative tendency essentially characteristic of age; so that, in the sharp collision of these rival forces, new principles, in any kind, find a sort of fiery ordeal interposed between their first enunciation and final acceptance; doubtless the appointed test of their soundness and vitality.

"Hence the domain of chemical philosophy has, for many years past, rather resembled a tumultuous battleplain, than a field bestowed by nature for peaceful cultivation by mankind. The new ideas, springing up of necessity one by one, and not always free, at their first conception, from errors and inconsistencies, have been resisted, by the champions of the old chemical dogmas, as a gratuitous revolt against established authority. Controversy has naturally stimulated research, which, in its turn, has produced rapid modifications of theory; so that the aspect of chemistry has been in a state of incessant change. It is, indeed, only within the last few years that

It will be apparent from the foregoing remarks, that this work is of an essentially general and introductory character, designed to elucidate the leading principles of chemistry, and by no means presented as an encyclopædic compendium of its facts. So far, indeed, from seeking to multiply details, it has been the author's chief care to avoid them, and to enter upon descriptions of phenomena only in subordination to his main design."

Further on, the aim of the work is described as ་་ essentially educational," and its method as, therefore, "experimental and illustrative, proceeding constantly from the concrete to the general; and extracting from a limited range of facts the largest amount of theoretic and general information which they can readily be made to yield." For these reasons, the writer proceeds to observe,

"The elements are, in this work, studied in a new order, not gratuitously adopted, but determined by their aptitude, in his view, to lead up to the knowledge of general laws, in just and logical succession; and so also, while endeavouring to illustrate incidentally the leading topics of experimental chemistry, he has been mainly guided, in his selection of experiments, by their fitness for the elucidation of theoretical views. It is rather in accordance with these exigencies of his plan, than with reference to the relative importance of the subjects treated, that space has been meted out to these; some topics, in themselves of great moment, being dismissed with but a passing notice, while others, intrinsically less interesting, are elaborately discussed, on account of their bearing on questions of principle."

Referring to his lectures at the College of Chemistry as being embodied in this work, and constituting "its original framework," Dr. Hofmann observes that, in preparing the work for press, "such additional matter has been introduced as appeared desirable for the more complete elucidation of the great laws set forth."

Dr. Hofmann concludes his prefatory observations by a well-deserved tribute to his collaborator, Mr. F. O. Ward, "whose well-known powers of lucid composition, and habits of philosophical thought, will be traced in every chapter of this work. Attracted to the new chemical doctrines by their own intrinsic truth and beauty, Mr. F. O. Ward has willingly devoted himself for months past to the task of assisting in their exposition; and in the course of these labours, as was to be expected, he has originated many valuable conceptions for their clearer elucidation and development. One, indeed, of his friend's indications the author feels bound to mention here, as constituting a distinct and valuable contribution to the new chemical edifice. He alludes to the Quantivalential Equilibrium of the Nitroxygen Series, as demonstrated by Mr. Ward, and displayed in the striking symmetrical diagram introduced by him at p. 180."

We shall take an early opportunity of laying Mr. F. O. Ward's above-mentioned remarkable diagram, with its explanation, before our readers, and we shall also endea vour to make room, in future numbers, for one or two chapters as samples of this valuable work. The object of the present notice is merely to give our readers some general idea of its character and purpose. With this view, having first quoted its preface, we may now cite its eloquent

conclusion-a rapid retrospective survey of the course, gracefully addressed by the lecturer to his students, as by a guide to travellers under his charge:

"But now, fellow-travellers, we have arrived at a point where our progress together must be interrupted for a time. The plan of this brief introductory course is fulfilled; and its objects, so far as my limited powers permit their achievement, are attained. Before we part, however, let us, as wayfarers are wont, rest awhile on the gentle eminence we have attained, and take a retrospective survey of our route thus far. In other words-and to drop metaphor-let us endeavour, by a summary recapitulation, to fix in our memory some of the leading facts and principles which our experiments and reasonings, our inductions and deductions, have gradually unfolded to our

view.

"As our point of departure, we selected, you remember, the familiar fluid, water; of which we learned the compound nature by an experiment, the simplest, perhaps, and the most striking, in the whole range of chemistry. "This consisted in dropping on its surface a fragment of the alkali-metal, potassium, which, at the touch of water, took fire, at the same time liberating from it an inflammable gas, called hydrogen. This, upon examination, proved to be the lightest body known, and we accordingly adopted it as our unitary standard of volume-weight.

"This standard gas we proceeded to liberate by the same simple means from two other bodies less familiar than water, but very well known in the arts and manufactures -viz., muriatic acid and ammonia, both, in their pure state, gases at ordinary temperature and pressure.

"The further examination of these three sources of hydrogen revealed to us the existence of three gaseous bodies,-chlorine, oxygen, and nitrogen, as being respectively associated with hydrogen, in muriatic acid, water, and ammonia.

"The study of chlorine, oxygen, and nitrogen showed us, in the first, one of the most active of chemical agents; in the second, the typical supporter of combustion; in the third, one of the most inert bodies known.

"By the analytic method, applied to decompose the three hydrogen compounds of these gases, and by the synthetic method, employed so far as available, to reconstruct them, we learned the proportions, as well by volume as by weight, in which chlorine, oxygen, and nitrogen respectively combine with hydrogen, in muriatic acid, water-gas, and ammonia.

"With one unit-volume each of chlorine, oxygen, and nitrogen, weighing respectively 35'5, 16, and 14, were found hydrogen combining in the unit-volume and weightratio of 1 for the first-named body, 2 for the second, and 3 for the third.

"Notwithstanding this inequality in the number of unitvolumes of the gaseous constituents of these compounds, we found the volumes of the gaseous products to be exactly equal; measuring in all three cases alike 2 unitvolumes. This curious circumstance proved to us that condensation increases, in these typical cases, pari passu, with the number of hydrogen-volumes engaged.

"We thus experimentally established three well-defined models of chemical structure, displayed in the combination of 3 typical elements with the standard element, hydrogen.

"To these types, both of elementary and compound bodies, a fourth in each kind was soon afterwards added; carbon presenting itself to our notice as the type of the non-volatile elements; while the richest in hydrogen of its hydrogen compounds-viz., marsh-gas-contributed its final term to our series of structural models. We had found the three gaseous typical elements successively engaging, within equal product-volumes (double the unitvolume in each case), 1, 2, and 3 volumes of hydrogen; and now, in the like product-volume of marsh-gas, we found carbon engaging 4 volumes of hydrogen.

"Hence the sort of disjunctive conjunction by which we annexed to our typical series of compounds this singular body, marsh-gas: alien with regard to the non-volatile character of its typical constituent, carbon; cognate in respect of its ponderal, volumetric, and condensational relations with its standard constituent, hydrogen. "To the establishment of the typical elements and their typical hydrogen compounds succeeded, naturally, the study of the congeners in each kind; and we were thus led to make acquaintance with bromine and iodine as analogues of chlorine, and with their respective hydrogen compounds as analogues of hydrochloric acid. With oxygen, and its hydrogen compound, water, we associated, in like manner, sulphur and selenium, and their respective hydrogen compounds cast in the structural mould of water-gas. With nitrogen and its hydrogen compound, ammonia, we connected phosphorus and arsenic, and their ammonia-like combinations with hydrogen. With carbon, lastly, and its hydrogen compound, marsh-gas, we conjoined, in like manner, silicon and its hydrogen compound, formed on the marsh-gas modef.

"In these four groups of typical elements and compounds, we recognised the germ of a grand conception,that of a natural classification of chemical bodies into genera and species, each distinguished by well-marked characteristics, not excluding individual varieties, but grouping them in subordination to collective laws.

"In the course of these experimental demonstrations, we became acquainted with the meaning of the term chemistry, and we obtained our first notions concerning the nature of chemical phenomena. We learned, for example, the characters of elementary as distinguished from compound bodies; of chemical combination as contradistinguished from mere mechanical mixture; of combining proportions, volumetric and ponderal; and of the immutability by which they are characterised.

"While thus gradually learning the general principles and laws of chemistry, we also became familiarised, as we proceeded, with the aspect and uses of chemical apparatus, and with the manipulations necessary for their dexterous employment. We gained experience more particularly of the methods in use for generating, collecting, transferring, measuring, desiccating, testing, and weighing gaseous bodies, and for ascertaining the influence of varying temperature and pressure on their bulk and density.

"Our analytic and synthetic operations obliged us to employ, by turns, the powerful agencies of electricity, light, heat, and the specific power we termed chemism, in order to bring about desired reactions; and these we often found to be attended with remarkable physical perturbations, as, for instance, with the sudden development of light and heat, and often with more or less violent explosion. The means of generating and applying the (so-called) imponderable forces, and of controlling their effects, when excessive or dangerous, were thus brought prominently, though cursorily, under our notice.

"Upon the individual characters of the elements and compounds thus submitted to investigation we did not dwell at length; nor, indeed, did we enlarge even upon the general laws with which we met in our course: it was our care to note only such particulars as came within the scope, and promoted the purposes, of our immediate inquiry.

"Doubtless, each subject which we thus touched by the way opened a tempting path to our curiosity; as the climber, whose appointed aim is the top of the tree, is tempted by the fruit-laden branches he passes in his ascent.

"But though we gladly accepted the incidental information which our experiments naturally threw in our way, we forbore from prolonged digressions, and persisted steadily in the straight course of our inquiry.

"This led us next to the study of the curious and important bodies constituting the nitroxygen series-a study in which we broke entirely new ground, quitting the consideration of the typical hydrogen compounds, each of

which only exemplifies combination in a single fixed ratio, and advancing to the examination of a new and pregnant law of chemistry, that of combination in multiple proportions. "As our induction thus extended itself and our facts began to accumulate, we felt the want of some instrument of record, less periphrastic than ordinary parlance, to epitomise concisely, and to bring graphically and simultaneously under the eye, trains of phenomena which it would else be difficult to grasp and comprehend, firstly, in their mutual relations to each other, and secondly, in their common dependence on general laws.

"We were thus induced to represent our gas volumes by squares, lettered with the initials of the bodies depicted, figured with their relative volume weights, and forming the germ of a symbolic nomenclature and notation which, in the further stages of our progress, we were enabled at once to enrich and to simplify by incorporating in it our newly-acquired facts, and eliminating from it forms too cumbersome for practical use, though invaluable as aids to chemical education.

"That our proportional numbers, abstract at first, might acquire a concrete significance, we had to make choice of some system of weight and measure in terms of whose unitary standards to express those otherwise vague determinations.

"This led us to study the admirable metrical system of the French, which supplied us with our standard of capacity, the litre, and of weight, the gramme; at the same teaching us, by means of Greek and Latin prefixes, to express their multiplication and division in decimal progression.

"The weight of the standard volume (1 litre) of our standard element (hydrogen), expressed in terms of our new ponderal unit (1 gramme), gave us the invaluable co-efficient o'0896 gramme, which, as you remember, we called our 'barley-corn weight,' or crith, by means whereof, as a multiplier, we convert the figures representing the mere abstract specific gravities of the various gases and vapours into expressions of their actual or concrete litre-weights.

"The concrete values with which our symbolic expressions thus became clothed increased the powers of our system of notation, both as a language for recording phenomena and as an instrument to assist in their investigation, experimental and theoretic.

"Thus armed, we ventured upon speculative ground; we sought the interpretation of the phenomena we had as yet but observed; we endeavoured to explain, by a rational hypothesis, the remarkable proportionality, ponderal and volumetric, of chemical reactions; and, with this view, we entered on the inquiry, What is matter? Of what parts is it composed? How are these affected by the solid, fluid, and gaseous conditions? How are their interspaces filled? And what, in particular, is the corpuscular construction of a gas?

"In studying these questions we were led to admit the threefold divisibility, molar, molecular, and atomic, of material bodies, and to refrain from asserting their infinite divisibility. The elasticity of gases are attributed to a force connected, in some unknown way, with heat; whose specific relations to different bodies, and so-called latency therein, enabled us to understand certain, else inexplicable, properties of gases, and to conceive these bodies as built up of molecules, or atom-clusters, of which all gases are assumed to contain equal numbers in equal volumes.

"In the light of these conceptions our symbolic language took on a new significance. Besides representing volumes and volume-weights, our squares became pictures, forms of molecules, and atoms, whose movements of decomposition and reconstruction we were thus, in imagination, enabled to follow.

"We thus become familiar with the diatomic structure of the typical elementary molecules, with the monatomic

and polyatomic structure of certain other molecules, and with the molecule-forming and atom-fixing powers of the elementary atoms, the former of which powers we found to be in the ratio of their atom-weights, while the latter we identified with their atom-freeing and atom-replacing powers, all of which we included in the term quantivalence. These studies led us naturally to touch on and illustrate the principles of quantivalential coefficients. "Having learned this much from the study of binary compounds, we passed on to consider compounds of a higher order-ternary, quaternary, &c., and the several modes of their genesis from binary compounds, as, for instance, sometimes by molecular, sometimes by atomic inception, each sometimes attended, and sometimes not, by substitutional displacement of atoms from the parent compound.

"Examples of ternary compounds generated in each of these modes were supplied to us in the lecture of to-day by the four typical groups with whose study we commenced our course. In our rapid review of these compounds, we noted their usually closely-packed product-volumes, or high vapour-densities; their frequent tendency to dissociation; their habitual retention of the structural type of their parent compounds; and the principles of their progressive or serial development. The last gas, which, in becoming methylic alcohol by inception of oxygen, threw open the gate of a new field of inquiry, and brought our present journey to its term.

"In this rapid retrospective survey, I have not attempted to be enclycopædic; my wish has merely been, at parting, to recal the more important of the many deeply-interesting topics which flowed upon us in succession, as out of a living source, from the pregnant conception of the molecular and atomic construction of matter.

"It can now, indeed, be no matter of surprise to you that we devoted so much time to the consideration of molecules and atoms, and dwelt at so much length upon the methods in use for determining the molecular and atomic weights of the elements. These are the foundations of chemical knowledge; and the table in which they are given, together with their symbols and coefficients of quantivalence, though, as we are aware, some of the figures are still doubtful, deserve our close and frequent study. The more of its figures we can bear in mind, the more accurate and ready will our knowledge be, whether for theoretic or practical applications.

"But I must not linger on these themes, nor, to defer unwelcome separation, trespass still further beyond limits already overpast. If, in conclusion, I resume my metaphor, and bid you adieu as fellow-travellers, it is because I deeply feel how much there is in the present transitional condition of chemistry to justify such an expression, and am almost painfully conscious how narrow is the explored domain through which the teacher can be your guide in comparison with those vast regions of truth as yet unknown, in which we are all fellow-students together.

"And thus, a learner myself, day by day, I can the better appreciate your constant and sympathetic attention to my lessons, and am encouraged the more earnestly to hope that the facts and principles which, in these few meetings, we have passed in review together will not merely afford us some present insight into the new doctrines now so deeply and, let me add, so wholesomely agitating the chemical world, but will also serve as a firm basis on which, in future conferences, we may build up, stone by stone, the vast superstructure of the chemical edifice." Nothing can be imagined more admirable in tone and taste than this philosophical farewell, in which, with the modesty which true learning inspires, we see the teacher humbly identifying himself with his pupils. We are, indeed, all of us, from the most eminent to the most obscure, "learners, day by day,"-" fellow-students" in the great amphitheatre of Nature," fellow-travellers through the vast regions of truth unexplored! Happy if

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Communicated by Mr. VAUGHAN, PATENT AGENT, 54, Chancery Lane, W.C.

2137. R. A. Brooman, Fleet Street, London, "Improvements in the manufacture of cast steel and cast iron, and the manufacture of a mixed metal." A communication from E. Martin and P. E. Martin, Paris.-Petition recorded August 18, 1865.

2357. L. G. Sourzac and L. Bombail, Bordeaux, Gironde, France, "Improved means for rendering leather more durable and flexible."-Sept. 15. 1865.

2461. T. F. Caslim, Sheffield, and J. F. Allender, Parkgate, near Sheffield, "Improvements in the manufacture of iron and steel, and of furnaces and machinery for purifying, puddling, or heating, the same."-Sept. 26, 1865.

2483. R. Reece, Llandilo, Carmarthenshire, "Improvements in obtaining and applying sulphurous acid and in apparatus used therein."-Sept. 28, 1865.

2523. C. D. Abel, Southampton Buildings, Chancery Lane, Improvements in the mode of treating the roots of the lucerne plant for the purpose of manufacturing. paper, pasteboard, fabrics, and ropes therefrom." A communication from J. P. Caminade, Rue d' Hilliers Orleans, Loiret, France.-Oct. 2, 1865.

2555. W. R. Barker, New Bond Street, "Improvements in apparatus for administering injections and douches to the human body."-Oct. 5, 1865.

NOTICES TO PROCEED.

1469. P. Young, Manchester, "Improvements in the construction of furnaces."-Petition recorded May 29, 1865. 1884. G. Nimmo, Jersey, New Jersey, U.S.A., "Improvements in the manufacture of pots and crucibles wherein metals and other materials may be heated or melted."July 19, 1865.

2008. J. W. Perkins, Norfolk-street, Strand, "Improvements in the treatment of hydrocarbon cr paraffine oils." -August 3, 1865.

2071. M. H. Blanchard, Blackfriars Road, Surrey, "Improvements in the manufacture of terra-cotta or vitreous stone."-August 10, 1865.

2163. J. G. Avery, Regent Street, "A new composition suitable for use as paint and protective coating."-A communication from W. Potter, Saratoga, U.S.A.August 22, 1865.

1547. D. Barker, Ceylon Street, Battersea Park, "Improvements in the manufacture of artificial fuel."Petition recorded June 6, 1865.

1590. R. A. Brooman, Fleet Street, London, "Improvements in furnaces." A communication from F. Durand, Paris.-June 12, 1865.

1602. T. Routledge, Ford, near Sunderland, and W. H. Richardson, Springwell, Jarrow-on-Tyne, "Improvements in the manufacture of paper and paper stock, and in the utilisation of certain waste products resulting therefrom."-June 13, 1865.

1809. J. Baggs, Chancery Lane, "Improvements in the production of artificial light, and in the apparatus conne ted therewith."-July 8, 1865.

2100. J. T. Lockey, Sutton, Lancashire, "Improvements in and connected with the manufacture of copper." Aug. 16, 1865.

2440. G. E. Rolland and E. L. Rolland, Paris, " An improved liquid composition for cleansing, scouring, and bleaching textile, animal, mineral, and vegetable substances."-Sept. 23, 1865.

CORRESPONDENCE.

Water from a Maniacal Point of View.

To the Editor of the CHEMICAL NEWS. SIR, Although the madmen here who have got me and a number of other perfectly sane individuals under their charge will not allow me the use of chemicals and apparatus, my brain works as actively and as clearly as if I had the Royal Institution laboratory at my disposal. I have just made a most important discovery, which I lose no time in communicating to you.

I have discovered that water is a member of the already large tribe of ammonias. If we take the compound atom

H'

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To the Editor of the CHEMICAL NEWS. SIR,-The statement of the Excise chemist, that sugar cannot, in the present state of chemical science, be detected as an adulteration in beer, induces me to ask whether the fermentation or oxide of copper test is inapplicable in the case of the adulteration mentioned. I can hardly suppose that the experiments have not been made, and therefore I should be glad to have your opinion before I make any myself. I am, &c. TYRO CHEMICUS. [It is one thing to prove the presence of sugar and another to prove it an adulteration.-ED. C. N.]

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

Alpha-Put more oxalic acid and a little gum.
Dr. Murpratt.-Received. Shall receive attention.

C. B.-If you have any difficulty in getting the book, it can be sent from our office.

J. G. B.-The matter is too important for us to assume the responsibility of advising upon.

Tyne-What examinations? You had better inquire of the Registrar at Burlington House.

J. C.-We have heard nothing about the book of late, and the author, we understand, has gone abroad.

Chemicus would feel greatly obliged to the readers of the CHEMICAL

News if any of them could give him the names of any works on the manufacture of pigments and colours, in English, French, or German.

Books Received.-"On Epidemic Cholera and Diarrhoea: their Prevention and Treatment by Sulphur," by John Grove, M.D., &c. (Third Edition.)

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