the name "" crystallogenic." I shall endeavour to lay before you a short epitome of his researches, which are not only interesting in a scientific point of view, but also in consequence of the mode in which he has applied it in connection with arts and manufactures; and those who take an especial interest in the matter will read, with pleasure his researches in the Comptes-Rendus de l'Academie des Sciences de Paris. M. Kulhmann, having mixed a certain class of substances which crystallised with facility such as mannite, sulphate of zinc, iron, copper, with a thick solution of gum, or any other substances interfering with the free crystallisation of these substances, and having spread the mixtures on glass, he found, by exposing such prepared plates to the atmosphere, that gradually the water would evaporate, leaving a dry mass, in which could be observed most beautiful arborisations. Each of the solutions will produce a well-defined design, which is not always identical, although operating under the same circumstances. Still, they assume very similar forms, being in some instances that of stars, and in others that of leaves and wreaths. These modifications are obtained by the strength of the solution, the nature of the salt, and the mode of preparation. Kuhlmann further observed, that if amorphous substances, such as magnesia and sesquioxide of iron, or chromium, be mixed with bodies susceptible of crystallisation, and these added to a gummy fluid, the amorphous particles are drawn into the crystallising substances, and follow the outlines; and if these are produced on surfaces, such as those of glass or porcelain, and heat applied, the gummy matter will be destroyed or volatilised, and the crystalline medium and the amorphous substances become incorporated, and fixed in the porcelain, reproducing on its surface a crystallogenic design. These researches which I have the pleasure to lay before you will show you the probability of carrying out these results to a satisfactory issue. Of course, the glass or porcelain manufacturer will easily understand that he will have to use borax or phosphate of soda, or other flux, as a crystallising medium, if he wants to produce in his art the results that I have stated. M. Kuhlmann has applied his crystallogenic process with great success to photography, and also to the art of engraving metals. As the latter may have some interest, I will give you an outline of his process. It consists in producing a crystallogenic design on the surface of an iron or copper plate, and then applying on the soprepared surface-say a sheet of lead or copper-and submitting them to high pressure when the design would be impressed upon the plate. The embossed plates, by being placed in a prepared solution, and in connexion with a galvanic current, will easily give birth to a fac-simile in relief, which can be used as a printing surface. It is with pleasure that I am able to state that though I part with these interesting researches for the present, I shall have the satisfaction of referring to them again in a subsequent part of this course of lectures, when I shall speak of some researches of this gentleman which have a more immediate bearing on the progress of science.

It has been for a long time a disputed question whether the stained windows we all admire in old cathedrals could be restored in such a way as to resume the brilliancy they had at the time they were placed there by the artists. At all events there is now no doubt that this can be effected by the process discovered by my eminent master, M. E. Chevreul, as is proved by the application of it in connexion with the restoration of stained windows existing in a well-known church in Paris-that from which the tocsin of St. Bartholomew was sounded, "St. Germain des Près." The process devised by M. Chevreul is highly practical; it consists in removing the stained glass from the windows, and dipping it for several days, first, in a weak solution of carbonate of soda of a specific gravity of 1068, then washing it, and dipping it for several hours in a solution of muriatic acid of a specific gravity of 1'080. On the glass being washed and dried, it will be found

as brilliant and beautiful as when it came from the hand of the manufacturer. M. Chevreul has found that the dim and dirty appearance which stained glass assumes by time is due, especially in large towns, to the various products of smoke being first condensed on the glass by fog and rain, and then becoming oxidised, they act as a cement to various mineral matters, such as chalk, gypsum, oxide of iron, &c., which help to impoverish the transparency of the glass. The alkali acts upon the organic matter and dissolves it, while the muriatic acid removes the minerals. The durability of glass placed in our monuments is extraordinary, when we bear in mind the curious results published some years since by the eminent chemist Pelouze, who observed that when window, bottle, and other varieties of glass were reduced to a fine powder, and mixed with water, they were soon acted on, yielding a large quantity of silicate of soda to that fluid, amounting in several cases to 8 or 10 per cent. in cold water, and even to 36 per cent. when the finelypulverised glass was boiled in water; and that, in many cases, it was a definite compound which was dissolved from the glass-namely, a silicate of soda, composed of three equivalents of silica and two equivalents of soda. M. Pelouze explains the extraordinary difference in the effect which water produces on glass when in large masses or plates, as compared with its influence on the same substance when reduced into a fine state of powder, by assuming that, in the first instance, water does not act because it seldom remains sufficiently long in contact with the glass to act upon the elements which compose it; while, in the second case, there exist numerous points of contact between the fluid and the solid body, thus facilitating the action of the fluid on the solid material. I am inclined to think that the peculiar molecular condition the surface of glass assumes, when manufactured in plates or otherwise, must exercise a great influence on the property which glass has to resist the action of water. If it were not so, how could be explained the limited action which watery fluids, such as wine, cause upon the interior surface of a bottle, though they remain in contact for many years? I can conceive glass assuming a peculiar surface by the pressure of the atmosphere, thereby producing a homogeneous one susceptible of resisting the action of water. A similar instance occurs in the case of polished steel, or of the rolled surface of wrought iron, or the skin of cast iron, which resist the chemical action of either air or acids in a far greater degree than does the interior of the substances which compose these metallic bodies.

Whilst dwelling upon old materials, you will allow me to give you an outline of a process devised by M. Stahl for the preservation of antediluvian fossils. We are aware how interesting it is to preserve relics of past ages, giving us some of the conditions of the world at various periods. Those relics are exceedingly fragile, and after many clumsy attempts M. Stahl arrived at his discovery. If the fossil is compact and comparatively firm, it is saturated by means of a brush with melted spermaceti; but if is friable, it is necessary to employ a melted mass composed of four parts of spermaceti and one of colophany resin, which in cooling gives great solidity to the mass of the fossil.

I would, in conclusion, draw the special attention of all artists who take an interest in the decorative art to the interesting papers published recently by M. Onfroy, on the one hand, and M. Wiel, of Paris, on the other; the first being in the Technologiste of last year, the latter in the Annales de Chemie et de Physique, on their respective methods for covering a metal with another more valuable by its properties or precious by its qualities. These methods have a special reference to cast iron or wrought iron. In Paris these processes, which may be regarded as not only ornamental but useful, have been applied with great success. Thus, for example, instead of the dirty, pitchy black lamp-posts which ornament our English towns, there can be seen in Paris elegant, well-designed, bronze

like posts, which are pleasing to the eye. The same can be said of the fountains on the Boulevard Sebastopol, the Place de la Concorde, and many other public promenades in Paris, which excite the admiration of foreigners visiting that city.

ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. November 6, 1865.

water; an oily liquid separated, which was washed once or twice with water and then treated with concentrated sulphuric acid. Silicium ethyl and the chlorine derivatives are insoluble in that acid, while the acid which might have been formed, and the oxide of silicium triethyl,

£i(CH)

THE Comptes Rendus of the Academy is again about filled with communications on cholera. With the strictly medical papers we have nothing to do, but we notice the memoir of M. Baudrimont (Experimental Researches on Epidemic Cholera), who thus sums up the conclusions he has come to on the subject-In cholera, he says, the blood is profoundly altered; it undergoes a loss of serum, represented by water, albumen, and various salts. The other elements lose the property of forming a clot. The albumen becomes transformed into a sort of diastase, which liquefies starch paste. This diastase is found in the stools. The mucoid matter is pretty much what it has been described by Audral; but to his description must be added spherical globules, like those which constitute beer yeast. To these observations we may add some speculations of the author. He asks whether the great resemblance between the dejections and the pancreatic juice may not indicate an excessive secretion of this fluid, and that it is by Wirsung's duct that all these fluids and the matters they hold in solution reach the intestine? And the change in the albumen and its transformation into diastase, may not this be the result of fermentation, and, if so, lead to new therapeutic and prophylactic measures? Might not antiseptic agents prevent the change or arrest it after having commenced? Bicarbonate of soda, in combination with ammonia, the author believes to be the best remedy for cholera.

MM. Friedel and Crafts presented a memoir "On a New Alcohol in which a Part of the Carbon is Replaced by Silicium." Stannic biethide, Frankland has shown, will exchange one or more molecules of ethyl for as many atoms of iodine or chlorine. Silicium ethyl behaves very differently from the organo-metallic compounds, and comports itself very like saturated hydrocarbons. When a current of chlorine is passed into cooled silicium ethyl the liquid at first becomes yellow, and then suddenly decolorises, evolving chlorhydric acid. No chloride of ethyl is set free. If the operation is stopped in a short time, and the products submitted to fractional distillation, and then the part boiling below 160° is again treated with chlorine, we obtain by repeating these operations several times a notable quantity of chlorinated products, boiling principally between 180° and 220o. The authors hoped to easily isolate from this mixture mono-chlorinated silicium ethyl. They did, in fact, after a great number of distillations, obtain a small quantity of liquid boiling about 185, which had a composition answering to the formula Sie,HCl. The greater part of the product, however, passed between 190° and 195°, and was a mixture in equal equivalents of mono- and bichlorinated silicium ethyl. The portions distilling at a still higher temperature approached the bichlorinated compound. At 230° it was necessary to stop the distillation, as the liquid in the flask began to decompose. Finding the difficulty of separating the chlorides formed, the authors proceeded to transform them into other products which could be more easily separated. After long attempts they succeeded in isolating two compounds derived from monochlorinated silicium ethyl. They heated portions of the product boiling between 180° and 200° in sealed tubes with acetate of potash and alcohol. Bichlorinated silicium ethyl was attacked first; and if the temperature did not exceed 130° or 140° the monochlorinated compound could be separated from the products of the reaction. For this the contents of the tube were added to a good deal of

}

On treating this product at 120° to 130° with a solution of potash in dilute alcohol it was transformed into a liquid having a camphorous odour, insoluble in water, and boiling at about 190°. The composition of this product answers to the formula, Sie H19

H

}e

It is the hydrate corresponding to the acetate employed. Sodium dissolves in it, disengaging hydrogen, and giving rise to the formation of a gelatinous matter which is decomposed by water, so reproducing the original compound, the water becoming alkaline.

All these facts, the authors say, reveal a striking analogy between silicium ethyl and the saturated hydrocarbides of the series EnH2n+2. The atom of silicium in the former body functions exactly like an atom of carbon, and seems to be retained with an energy comparable to that which binds the atoms of carbon themselves. To separate this silicium, as also to break the fundamental chain of the hydrocarbides, nothing less than energetic oxidising actions will suffice. It is then pointed out that the number of hydrogen atoms in silicium ethyl is the same as there would be in hydride of nonyl; that is to say, a saturated hydrocarbon containing the same number of tetratomic atoms, Si¤,H20=Si(2H ̧)4, ¤‚H20=E(C2H). In conclusion, the authors say that the numerical resemblances and the parallelism of reactions of silicium ethyl and its monochlorinated derivative with those of the hydrides described by Pelouze and Cahours justify them in designating the new alcohol and acetate as the hydrate and acetate of silico-nonyl.

M. E. Kopp presented another note "On the Theory of the Formation of Soda by Leblanc's Process." It is in reply to M. Scheurer Kestner, and the author gives several analyses to prove that the relation of sulphide of calcium to quick-lime, in soda-waste, is always such as to indicate the combination 2 CaS, CaO, the oxysulphide of calcium of Dumas.

MANCHESTER LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL

SOCIETY.

PHYSICAL AND MATHEMATICAL SECTION.
October 12, 1865.

ROBERT WORTHINGTON, F.R.A.S., Vice-President of the
Section, in the Chair.

Mr. DANCER, F.R.A.S., exhibited a small and cheap, but

NEWS

very effective, induction coil, and a set of four Geissler' tubes, in which the stratification of the electrical light wa very distinctly shown when a small battery of only one pair of elements was employed to produce the primary

current.

Mr. BROTHERS, F.R.A.S., exhibited a beautiful series of enlarged photographs of the moon from negatives taken during the progress of the lunar eclipse on the night of the 4th ult.

Mr. DANCER stated, with reference to the eclipse, that he and his son, Mr. James Dancer, had noticed some irregularities on the border of the earth's shadows, which, as they maintained their forms and relative positions whilst the shadow passed over the moon's disc, could not, he thought, be due to differences in the reflective power of different portions of the moon's surface.

Mr. BAXENDELL suggested that these irregularities might be owing to the prevalence of extended masses of clouds in certain portions of the earth's atmosphere, and their absence in others.

MICROSCOPICAL SECTION.

October 16, 1865.

A. G. LATHAM, Esq., President of the Section, in the Chair. THIS being the first meeting of the Session, the PRESIDENT delivered an address reviewing the past proceedings of the Section, and referring with satisfaction to the proposal to extend its objects to subjects of Natural History generally. Mr. SIDEBOTHAM read "Notes on Atlantic Soundings.' He said that in the unsuccessful attempt made to raise the Atlantic cable after it had unfortunately parted, the ropes and grapnels brought up from the bottom small portions of ooze or mud, some of which was scraped off and preserved, as stated at the time in the newspapers. Believing that a careful examination of this deposit might prove of considerable interest, he wrote on the subject to Dr. Fairbairn, who, after considerable trouble, obtained for him a fine sample, mounted specimens of which he now presented for the cabinet, and to each member of the Section. In appearance the deposit resembles dirty clay, and under the microscope reminds one much of the chalk from Dover, indeed, it has all the appearance of being a bed of chalk in process of formation. It is composed entirely of organisms, chiefly in fragments. In the short examination he had made, he observed several forms which gave promise of interesting results, and he thought it would be desirable to frame a complete list of the species found, which would be best accomplished by two or three members taking temporary possession of all the slides, and preparing a report on their united observations. The sample now distributed was obtained at Dr. Fairbairn's request by Mr. Saward, from Mr. Temple, one of the engineering staff, who states that it was got in grappling for the cable, August 11, 1865, lat. 51° 25′ 15′′′ N., long. 38° 59′ W.

NOTICES OF BOOKS.

the Jury of that section, reporting thereon, said that it was "probably capable of application in confectionery and cookery, as its flavour resembles that of bitter almonds, without containing any prussic acid." It was first shown to be a poison in 1856, but before that time the stupefying effects of its fumes had been noticed by workmen employed in its manufacture.

The first case of poisoning in the human subject occurred in 1860, and was investigated by the author of the paper we notice. A workman spilt some of the liquid upon the front of his clothes, and thus went about breathing an atmosphere charged with the vapour. In the course of four or five hours the man began to feel ill, and in nine hours he died. In all the other cases recorded (only five) some of the liquid has been swallowed, but in none, probably, more than a few drops. All the cases, with one exception, have proved fatal.

With regard to the symptoms, we need only say that they are those of a powerful narcotic poison. The patient, in general, at first becomes drowsy, some convulsions afterwards occur, profound coma gradually comes on, and the sufferer dies.

An investigation of the effects of the poison on animals led to some interesting observations. The most curious and, indeed, startling of these is the circumstance that when but a small dose of the poison is administered, the effects are not developed until the lapse of a considerable time,-in some cases three or four days. Some discomfort which the animal seems to feel at first passes off, and it remains to all appearance perfectly well until seized with a kind of epileptic attack. Paralysis of the hinder extremities succeeds, which is followed by severer symptoms, and the animal dies, it may be as long as nine days after having swallowed the poison. When death is rapid, the smell of nitrobenzole is perceptible in every tissue of the animal's body; but in lingering cases no vestige of the smell remains. It has been found, in fact, that the nitrobenzole becomes changed into aniline in the living body-a most important fact, as Dr. Letheby remarks, to the toxicologist, the chemist, and the physiologist.

The effects of aniline are closely analogous to those of nitrobenzole; but the symptoms do not seem to be delayed, as in the case of the latter poison. On this point, however, we cannot speak with certainty, for Dr. Letheby appears to have administered aniline in rather large doses.

It is a remarkable and, so far as our memory serves us, an unique circumstance, that while aniline itself is an energetic poison, its salts are quite innoxious. The sulphate has been administered in large doses-in one case at the London Hospital nearly an ounce was given to a patient in the course of a few days-and the only effect observed was a colouration of the skin, gums, and nails, which all became more or less purple.

We have seen before that nitrobenzole is converted in the body into aniline, and the effects of aniline just described appear to show that aniline is also converted into some of its coloured derivatives.

"The chemist perceives that the nitrobenzole has been

Vol. I. London:

EDWARDS and Mr. CALLENDER. Longmans and Co. 1865. Clinical Lectures and Reports. By the Medical and Surgical Staff of the London Hospital. Vol. II. London: Churchill and Sons. 1865.

WE have already given an account of some of the cases of poisoning by nitrobenzole which have occurred-and they have been very few-so that it will be unnecessary here to do more than refer to some of the chief peculiarities of the action of this poison. For a long time after it became an article of commerce, nitrobenzole was not known to be poisonous. Some of it was exhibited as a new product in the Perfumery Department of the Exhibition of 1851, and

has lost its four proportions of oxygen, and has gained two of hydrogen, passing from C12H,NO, to C12H-N, and he also perceives in the leaden hue of the face and the mauve tint of the lips and nails that a subsequent oxidation of the aniline has been effected. The physiologist recognises the fact that these changes have occurred in different parts of the body, that the process of reduction has taken place in the interior of the system, and that the subsequent oxidation has been merely a surface effect." However this may be, these curious facts seem to throw some light on the processes going on in our bodies, and suggests investigations from which further information may be obtained. The mauve colouration speedily disappears from the sur

face of the body: in what form is the aniline compound eliminated?

We have already given Dr. Letheby's process for the detection of aniline and nitrobenzol in organic matters, and need now describe it very briefly.

The matters to be examined are bruised in a mortar with a little water, slightly acidulated with sulphuric acid, and then submitted to distillation. Unchanged nitrobenzo! passes over, and may be recognised by its smell. The residue in the retort is treated with strong alcohol to extract sulphate of aniline. The alcoholic solution is treated with slight excess of subacetate of lead to remove organic matters, and excess of lead is get rid of by treating the filtered solution with sulphate of soda. The filtered solution from sulphate of lead is now made alkaline with caustic potash, and distilled to dryness in an oil bath. Aniline is found in the distillate, and may be recognised by the nascent oxygen taste described in a previous number of the CHEMICAL NEWS (vol. v., p. 71). We now take our leave of the two volumes we notice, which, embodying the experience gained at two of our largest London hospitals, have strong claims to the attention of the medical profession.

Contributions to Blow-pipe Analysis. By E. CHAPMAN, Ph.D., Professor of Mineralogy and Geology in University College, Toronto. Toronto: Lovell and Gibson. 1865. THIS is, for the most part, a collection of articles communicated to the chemical journals during several years past, and now published as the avant-courier to a complete guide to blow-pipe analysis and blow-pipe assaying, which the author has in preparation and nearly ready. Two processes from the collection we notice will be found in another part of this number. We shall wait with some impatience for the author's larger work, which we expect to contain much new, original, and valuable matter.

Poggendorff's Annalen der Physik und Chemie. No. 8. 1865. Annales de Chemie et de Physique. September, 1865. We notice these two journals together on this occasion because they contain announcements of the same discovery made by different experimenters. Poggendorff's Annalen, which reached us first, contains a paper by A. Mitscherlich "On the Application of the Spectroscope to the Detection of Chlorine, Bromine, and Iodine in the Minutest Quantities."

tricity in all cases results from the contact of two molecules of different natures. "The electricity developed in thermo-electric and hydro-electric couples, as well as that produced by friction, results from a molecular force, which is manifested whenever two molecules of different natures are placed in contact. This force is, without doubt, affinity; but it must be remarked, however, that if, in certain cases, it produces at the same time electricity and chemical combination, it produces in other cases electricity alone."

There is another important paper by M. Leroux, " On the Laws of the Disengagement of Heat by the Passage of the Electric Current in Metallic Conductors and Voltameters,' which gives a simple method of determining the heat disengaged in electro-chemical decompositions. Two papers, or rather abstracts of memoirs, by M. Dufour are given :-1. "On the Ebullition of Water, and on a Probable Cause of Boiler Explosions;" 2." On some Facts relating to the Ebullition of Water." We shall give the author's explanation of the cause of boiler explosions in a miscellaneous paragraph.

M. Marguerette's memoir" On Acieration," or steelification, to use the clumsy English equivalent, and M. Semenoff's paper "On the Law of Volumes in Double Decomposition," both of which we have already noticed, complete an unusually valuable number of the Annales.

Annalen der Chemie und Pharmacie. October, 1865. This journal, among several papers which we have already noticed in other periodicals, contains several short papers of great interest. We publish to-day in another place a striking "Lecture Experiment," by Kraut. Besides this we have a short paper "On the Conversion of Benzol into Hexyl," by Carius; another On the Decomposibility of Hydrochloric Acid by Copper," by Weltzien; a description of "An Apparatus for the Production of Phosphoric Anhydride," by Graf Grubowski; and a preliminary notice of 'Methoxysalylic Acid," by Carl Graebe.

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1766. J. Dale and R. S. Dale, B.A., Manchester, "Improvements in the production of pigments suitable for printing upon paper and woven fabrics.- Petition recorded July 4, 1865.

Only one other chemical paper appears in Poggendorff. It is by Carl Ritter von Hauer, "On a Series of Compounds of Sulphates in Fixed Equivalent Proportions." The author has formed a series of salts having the general formula CuO.SO3+2(RO.SO3) + 21aq. The sulphates which lend themselves to this combination with sulphate of copper are those of cobalt, nickel, magnesia, zinc, and iron. The nickel and cobalt salts are perfectly isomorphous. The crystals of all the compounds have a great resemblance in form to that of sulphate of copper without being strictly isomorphous.

In the Annales de Chemie et de Physique will be found two important electrical papers by M. Gaugain, On the Development of Electricity which Results from the Friction of Metals and Insulating Bodies," and "On the Single Origin of Electromotive Forces." The author believes that elec

2720. A. Bankart, Braughing, Hertfordshire, "An improved apparatus for calcining copper ore, and for treating the products of copper ore when being calcined."

2721. W. H. Kitchen, Newcastle-on-Tyne, "A new or improved apparatus for producing artificial respiration." October 21, 1865.

2754. W. E. Newton, Chancery Lane, "Improvements in the preparation of photographic papers." A communication from L. de Montgolfier, Rue St. Sebastien, Paris. October 25, 1865.

2791. R. D. Dwyer, Liverpool, "An improved coating for covering the bottoms of iron and steel ships and other navigable vessels and marine works, to prevent oxidation and the adhesion of animal and vegetable matter thereto." 2793. E. Meldrum, Bathgate, county of Linlithgow, Improvements in the distillation of coal and shale, and in the apparatus employed therein."-October 30, 1865.

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