Kränchen gave free CO, 1.5277, combined 0.6782, total 2.2059 grams. Carlsbad Schlossbrunnen 14122 free CO,, 07966 combined CO,, total 2.2088 grams. Marienbad Kreuzbrunnen 2·6355, combined 0.9055, total 3.5408 grams.-J. pr. Ch., II, xvii, 353, July, 1878. G. F. B. 2. On Ultramarines of various metals.-The production from the blue ultramarine containing sodium, of a yellow ultramarine in which the sodium is replaced by silver, was accomplished some time ago by Heumann by heating the former substance, mixed with a concentrated solution of silver nitrate, to 120° in a sealed tube. The attempt to form other analogous ultramarines in this way was a failure. DEFORCRAND and BALLIN have now succeeded in devising a general method of preparing ultramarines containing different metals, and by which they have already produced potassium, barium, zinc and magnesium ultramarines. The process consists in producing the yellow silver ultramarine by the above method and then in heating an intimate mixture of this with the metallic chloride desired. To produce the silver product, the authors heated, for fifteen hours, ten sealed tubes, each containing five grams of blue ultramarine and ten grams of silver nitrate in concentrated solution. On opening the tubes, seventy-five grams of pure silver ultramarine was obtained containing 46 63 per cent. of silver. Under the microscope it appeared a perfectly homogeneous mass of transparent yellow grains. It contained silicon, aluminum, sulphur, silver and oxygen; is insoluble in water, and undecomposable by strong acids. Heated with an intimate admixture of sodium chloride repeatedly, the sodium replaces again the silver and a blue ultramarine is obtained, of a more beautiful shade, and containing less of violet than the original ultramarine; a difference due to the slight loss of sulphur. If potassium chloride be used, a bluish-green ultramarine is produced. Barium chloride gives a yellowish-brown, zinc chloride a violet, and magnesium chloride a gray compound, having all the properties of ultramarine.-Bull. Soc. Ch., II, xxx, 112, August, 1878. G. F. B. 3. On Chrome Steel.-BOUSSINGAULT has made an investigation into the production, the constitution and the properties of the so-called chrome steel. This steel is prepared by mixing in the crucible the required proportions of any suitable steel and an alloy of iron and chromium called ferro-chromium. This alloy is obtained by the direct reduction of chromic iron, and when made in the crucible may contain sixty to seventy per cent of chromium, but only seven to ten when made in a high furnace. The discovery of this steel, the author attributes to Berthier in 1820, and gives extracts from his memoir describing his experiments. He made two chrome steels, one containing 0010, the other 0.015 of chromium, which were of excellent quality and were worked into cutlery. Boussingault made two experiments to test the question whether chromium alone could give to iron the property of tempering. One of these steels contained 0 010 of chromium and 0.001 of carbon, the other 0.0124 of chromium and 0.0031 of carbon. The first could not be tempered at all, and the other only to the extent of the carbon in it. Further experiments with iridium and osmium showed that these metals could not give to steel the property of hardening. He points out the fact that in 1867 in Antioquia in Central America, a cast iron was made containing from two to four per cent of chromium, and concludes with a description of the process of making ferro-chromium and chrome steel in the works at Unieux.-Ann. Chim. Phys., V, xv, 91, Sept., 1878. G. F. B. 4. On the Etherification of the Primary Alcohols.-MENSCHUTKIN has studied the influence of the isomerism of the alcohols and acids upon the formation of their compound ethers, and in the present paper gives a table showing the percentage of acetic acid etherified by the different primary alcohols at 154°. As to the velocity of this etherification, the first place is taken by methyl alcohol; then follow the primary saturated and then the primary unsaturated alcohols. The author calls the velocity of the reaction during the first hour, expressed in percentages of the ether formed, the starting-velocity. By absolute velocity he distinguishes the ratio between the quantity of the acid or alcohol etherified and the whole quantity taken; by relative velocity the ratio of the portion etherified during the first hour to the whole quantity finally etherified. The absolute starting-velocity of methyl alcohol is 55-59, the relative 80.8. The saturated normal primary alcohols have the same absolute starting velocities, though after the first hour, alcohols with high molecular weight show greater absolute velocities than those of smaller molecular weight. The relative starting velocity lessens with increasing molecular weight in the case of the normal primary alcohols. The influence of isomerism, though distinct in the case of absolute, is more marked in the case of relative starting velocity. The velocity of etherification is less in the unsaturated primary alcohols. To estimate the limit of the etherification, numbers are taken representing the final percentage etherified, beginning with 120 hours. With the exception of methyl alcohol, the percentage increases with the molecular weight. Isomerism affects the velocity of etherification, not its limit. The unsaturated primary alcohols show lower limits than saturated alcohols having the same number of carbon atoms.Ber. Berl. Chem. Ges., xi, 1507, Sept., 1878. G. F. B. 5. On the Preparation of Allyl Bromide.-The present mode of preparing allyl bromide, by dropping phosphorous bromide on dry allyl alcohol, is tedious and possibly dangerous. GROSHEINTZ has shown that this ether may be readily prepared by distilling a mixture of allyl alcohol, potassium bromide and sulphuric acid. The best way is to add to the potassium bromide the sulphuric acid diluted with its volume of water, and to heat the mixture in a distilling apparatus. When the hydrobromic acid begins to be evolved, the allyl alcohol is allowed to fall drop by drop into the liquid. The allyl bromide, which distils over with the vapor of water, is washed with water slightly alkaline and dried over calcium chloride.-Bull. Soc. Ch., II, xxx, 98, August, 1878. G. F. B. 6. On a New Method of preparing Aldehydines.-LADENBURG showed some time ago that the orthodiamines could be readily distinguished from the meta and paradiamines by the fact that the former produce with aldehyde permanent bases which he called aldehydines. He has now proposed a new and simple method of preparing these aldehydines, which consists simply in agitating a dilute aqueous solution of the orthodiamine hydrochlorate with aldehyde. A tenacious mass is at first formed, which after a long time on standing, or more quickly on adding alcohol, passes into a colorless crystalline hydrochlorate of the new base. Recrystallization gives it pure. The yield is from fifty to seventy per cent.-Ber. Berl. Chem. Ges., xi, 1648, Sept., 1878. G. F. B. 7. On the Constituents of Corallin.-ZULKOWSKY has reëxamined the substance known as corallin and has succeeded in obtaining from it two homologous bodies corresponding to the two homologous rosanilines discovered by Emil and Otto Fischer, the rosanilines being the triamido and the rosolic acids the trioxyderivatives of a hydrocarbon constituted like diphenylphenylenemethane. The first of these rosolic acids crystallizes in needle masses, dark rose-red by transmitted light, with a magnificent metallic-green reflection. It has the formula C, H,,O,. The second is garnet-red, crystallizes in right rhombic prisms, has a blue metallic reflection and affords on analysis the formula C,H,O,. -Liebig's Annalen, cxciv, 109, Sept., 1878. 20 16 19 14 G. F. B. 8. On a New Organic Base in the Animal Organism.-SCHREINER has examined a crystalline substance found under various conditions in the animal organism. It was prepared from the spermatic fluid by boiling with alcohol, filtering, drying the residue at 100°, and extracting with warm water containing a few drops of ammonia. On evaporation monoclinic crystals are obtained, which proved to be the phosphate of a new base, whose hydrochlorate had the formula C,H,NHCI.--Liebig's Annalen, cxciv, 68, Sept., 1878. 2 G. F. B. 9. Persulphuric Oxide S,O,.-Since his earlier paper on the subject, noticed in our March number, BERTHELOT has published the results of a more extended investigation of this new compound. The most interesting points established are those connected with its thermal relations. In the fixation of oxygen gas to form persulphuric oxide, heat is absorbed, and hence in its decomposition heat is evolved, and the loss of energy in the successive stages from ozone to oxygenated water, from oxygenated water to persulphuric oxide, and from persulphuric oxide to ordinary oxygen are beautifully traced, the total change being represented by 14.8 units of heat. Thus M. Berthelot has furnished us with another illustration of the general principle which his investigations have served so greatly to illustrate. Persulphuric oxide is an example of a remarkable class of compounds whose formation is attended with the absorption of heat, and whose production can only be determined by the expenditure of some mode of energy. Corresponding to these circumstances of their genesis are the facts that these compounds are very unstable, and that when they decompose into more stable products the heat previously rendered latent becomes free. Now in accordance with the mechanical theory of heat we are forced to the assumption that the expenditure of energy attending the production of such unstable compounds gives to the parts of their molecules a certain energy of position, which energy becomes free when these parts fall back into a more stable equilibrium. But this evidently implies that the molecules have a certain structure, and if so, this structure is a legitimate subject of investigation. We find it therefore difficult to understand why it is that M. Berthelot, while furnishing chemistry with some of the most important facts on which the modern theories of molecular structure are based, should so persistently disparage the results of those who are investigating the same subject from a different point of view, and whose conclusions are, at least, as trustworthy as his own. In the present series of papers, Ann. de Chem. et Phys., July, 1878, Dumas' theory of types is revived and advocated as more philosophical than the generally received doctrine of atomicities, on the ground that it is not so much the nature of the radicals as the so-called type of combination which determines the qualities and chemical relations of the resulting products. But in the present state of science what conception can we form of a type of combination except as a mode of atomic grouping? and what is the doctrine of atomicities except an attempt at a representation of the habitual mode of grouping of the various atoms, and assuredly the great class of chemical students whose doctrines Berthelot condemns, are all engaged on the one problem of tracing the physical as well as the chemical relations of substances to what they call molecular structure? Lastly, we fail to see what advantage the phrase "type of combination" has over the term "molecular structure." The two expressions suggest the same general thought; but the idea of molecular structure developed as it has been by the investigations of the last ten years, is a more definite conception and one which correlates a vastly larger number of facts than the earlier conception of chemical types, and it must be admitted that the value of a working theory depends solely on its power of correlating facts. J. P. C., JR. 10. Acoustic Repulsion. In a recent number of the Philosophical Magazine (October, 1878) Lord Rayleigh has given a mathematical explanation of the curious phenomenon of the repulsion of resonators observed by Dvorák and Mayer (Phil. Mag., September, 1878, p. 225.) The conclusion is reached that the resonator tends to move as if impelled by a force acting normally over the area of its aperture and directed inward. AM. JOUR. SCI.-THIRD SERIES, VOL. XVI, No. 96.-Dec., 1878. 11. Note by W. GOOLD LEVISON, on the Sand Filter described in American Journal of Science, September, 1870, page 241.* (Communicated.)-A glass rod of a little larger diameter than the aperture in the neck of the funnel is drawn out to a slender thread as shown below. a b с This is then cut off by the file at the points a, b and c, forming two pieces. The large end of such a piece being held in the flame soon assumes a globular shape, forming a pear of glass. When this is dropped in the funnel the long stem rests against its side. If the funnel be of very thin glass, so as to weigh but little, and the end of the stem be fused fast to its rim, no jar will loosen the sand or precipitate, and it forms, probably, the most convenient filter for drying precipitates at a temperature that would char paper. II. GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY. 1. Note upon the history and value of the term "Hudson River Group," in American Geological Nomenclature; by JAMES HALL. (Proc. Amer. Assoc., Nashville meeting, August, 1877.)The term Hudson River Group was employed in the Reports of the New York Geological Survey for the shales and slates overlying the Trenton limestone. Later it was urged by Sir William Logan, and partially admitted by Mr. Hall, that the slates of the Hudson River region were not of the group, but of the Quebec group, and the name Cincinnati group was suggested by Meek and some other geologists as a substitute. Professor Hall here reviews the facts, and states that subsequently he, with Sir William Logan, after an examination of the region, found that the first conclusion was essentially right; that the "Hudson River group continues uninterruptedly from Saratoga County to Kingston in Ulster County, and, on the east side of the river, is clearly defined along the valley, with a width of one to several miles, through the counties of Washington, Rensselaer, and Columbia, its eastern limit approaching the river near Rhinebeck; and he rightly says, that there is no good reason for abandoning the old name Hudson River Group.' 2. Paleontological Report of the Princeton Scientific Expedition of 1877; by HENRY F. OSBORN, WM. B. SCOTT and FRANCIS SPEIR, JR. 146 pp. 8vo, with 10 plates, 1878.-The expedition from Princeton College last summer to Colorado and Wyoming returned with large and valuable collections of fossils as this Report abundantly shows. The Colorado collections were made in the beds near Florissant, supposed to be Miocene, and in those near the Garden of the Gods "referred to the Dakota and *In the title of the article, here referred to, Mr. Goold Levison's name is wrongly spelt in two of its letters. |