Potassium obtained in vari ous ways. fers in some muriate of potash, a soft green resin, an animal extract, mucilage, and oxigenizable extract. In the berries he found as sensible a test of acids and alkalis as the infusion of mallow flowers. By pouring alcohol on the expressed juice of the ripe berry, the purple fluid will be coagulated by the precipitation of the mucilage. This coagulum is to be well washed with the same alcohol, and the tincture fil. tered off. If this tincture be diluted with water till it has no longer any perceptible colour, it will become green with alkalis, and red with acids. The purplish colour of this tincture changes to a yellow in time, but it still retains its property of detecting the smallest portion of acid or alkali Mr, Ritter has obtained the metallic product of potash with almost all the metallic substances yet known, when they are employed as the extremity of the negative con ductor, and always fine and perfect. Arsenic alone, produces it of a shining black or blackish colour, He has obtained it also by employing charcoal and plumbago as conductors: but not with the gray crystallized oxide of manganese, which is merely deprived of its oxigen in the proTellurium dif- cess. When tellurium was placed in potash as the extrerespects from inity of the negative wire, it did not produce bright metal other metals. of potash, but a brown dirty substance. Mr. Ritter then took tellurium for a negative wire, and immersed it in pure water in which was likewise the positive wire, and immediately streaks of a brown black were produced, which, sepa rating from the tellurium, fell to the bottom of the water, and from the manner in which they were produced, and the place of their origin, they must have been hidruret of tellurium. Thus tellurium produced no metal of potash because it absorbs all the hidrogen itself. The button of tellurium, purified afresh, was employed as a positive wire in pure water; and, what must excite more astonishment, it remained brilliant, formed no oxide, and gave out a great deal of gas. Thus of eighteen metals subjected to Mr. Ritter's experiments, telluriumn is the only one, that produced a hidruret at the negative pole; and the fourth, that with gold, platina, and palladium, gives out gas at the positive pole. Does tellurium then commence a new series of of metals, which comport themselves with respect to the hidrogen of water as others toward the oxigen of this fluid? Dr. Seebeck, of Jena, has obtained indications of an Magnesia and amalgama with magnesia and alumine. alumine perhaps metallic. Mr. Trommsdorff has prepared an artificial succinic acid. Artificial suc For this purpose he employs the saccholactic acid of cinic acid. Scheele, which he introduces into a retort and subjects to dry distillation. The products of this distillation deserve farther inquiry. He has likewise examined the sulphuretted alcohol of Sulphuretted Lampadius, and found in it several new properties. As it alcohol of Lampadius contains no carbon, he thinks it may be called oleous hidro- contains no guretted sulphuret. It readily dissolves phosphorus, and carbou. in large quantity; one part dissolving eight of phosphorus and still remaining liquid. This solution of phosphorus readily takes fire in the open air. In close vessels it may be decomposed by heat. The sulphuretted alcohol first passes over, though not quite free from phosphorus. heat. Fecula dissolved in boiling water undergoes a remarkable Fecula changeable by change, when evaporated over a moderate tire. It becomes a semitransparent horny mass perfectly insoluble in hot water. Wetted, and kept five months in a pretty warm place, Mr. Trommsdorff could not find it exhibit any signs of fermentation. water notalest Mr. Trommsdorff repeated Mr, Cadet's experiments on Camphorate? the solution of camphor in distilled water*. He found of soda. them accurate; but he also found, that the camphorated water is rendered turbid by pure soda, and consequently will not serve as a test to distinguish this from potash. Mr. Vogel has made some trials, that confirm this: but soda combined with a certain portion of carbonic acid does not precipitate the camphor. * See Journal, vol. XIX, p. 26. METEOROLOGICAL * At 6 P. M. stars visible; at 9, heavy fog; at 11, starlight. At 11, starlight and ekar, Coininencing rain at 10 P. M. Snow in the night, the morning milder. A JOURNAL OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY, CHEMISTRY, AND THE ARTS. SUPPLEMENT TO VOL. XXIV. ARTICLE I. Memoir on the Triple Sulphuret of Lead, Copper, and (Concluded from Page 260.) PART II. Observations on Endellion, as being the Result of a triple THE Royal Society has printed in the first part of the Paper on en- * See Journal, vol. xx, p. 332. author ↑ Additional note. I mean Mr. Smithson's paper already mentioned. The Royal Society having printed a critique on the crystallographical part of my first memoir on endellion, however I might feel hurt by the style of that critique, I thought it better not to notice it, than to expose the transactions of that illustrious and respectable body to be made the scene of a dispute, which certainly could not be more misplaced. I therefore presented my new memoir on endellion to the Royal Society, merely as the result of continued and extended VOL. XXIV.-SUPPLEMENT. observations, Y Phil. Trans. Doubts of the existence of higher than binary combinations. Ultimate par ticles of bodies have a regular figure. Combinations more than binary may exist. author there professes his doubts of the existence of triple, quadruple, and greater combinations; and his opinion, that all combinations are binary. In consequence he endeavours to refer to one of the latter the nature of the com. pound, that gives rise to endellion; considering it as formed by the intimate combination of sulphuret of lead, or galena, and that kind of copper ore, which the Germans call fahlertz. I cannot conceive on what reasons the author grounds his opinion, that there can be no triple, quadruple, or greater combination. On the contrary the possibility of these combinations seems to me demonstrated by the simple facts, that I have already brought forward in the second volume of my mineralogy, p. 390, in order to show, that the molecules of bodies, considered as principles of minerals, possess, as well as the integrant molecules which result from the combination of these, the property of having a regular figure. The act of combination of these molecules, in observations, which had enabled me to make this substance, which is peculiar to England, more thoroughly known, and to render my account of it more complete. The second part of my paper was intended to include some reflections on a fact highly interesting both to the mineralogist and the chemist, which is the possibility or impossibility of the existence of triple, quadruple, and other combinations in the mineral kingdom. Mr. Smithson, in one part of his paper, sought to establish the principle, that all combinations could only be binary, and adduced endellion in confirmation of his opinion. After having laid down the reasons, that seem to me to preclude all doubt of the possibility of more than binary combinations, it was necessary for me to show the weakness of the argument deduced from endellion; which could not be made to answer this purpose without giving an arbitrary proportion of the component parts of the two sulphurets, the binary combination of which produced it, or at least a proportion different from that usually admitted by chemists. I confess, however, that, had I not found occasion to answer the critique included in the same paper, it would not probably have been in the Philosophical Transactions, that I should have pointed out this obvious errour. However, if the committee of the Royal Society had requested me, to suppress this part of my paper, I should not have hesitated a single moment to comply with its wishes, however interestiug I conceived it to be. |