CHEMICAL NEWS, Distillation of Ammonia in Presence of Sulphocyanides. January 8, 1875. necessary for such a plane being a possible face of the crystal. Examples of these laws were given in the case of the zone [111, 341] or [321], which also contains the faces (214) and (012), the edges for which gave symbols differing from each other by common factors, such as -I, 3, and 5. So also this zone [321], and a zone [110, 001], i.e., [10], have in common the face (111) and the face (111). ANALYSIS OF MOFFAT AND HERTFELL SPAS COLLECTED ON THE 5TH AND 12TH OCTOBER, 1874. By W. JOHNSTONE, Edinburgh. Moffat Spa. THIS valuable sulphurous spring, to which Moffat owes its celebrity, was discovered in 1633, and the discoverer is said to have been a daughter of Bishop Whiteford. There are two springs, the upper and the lower, but being only about a yard or so distant, they are regarded as the same well. The springs rush from a cavity of a rock on the brink of a linn, down which rushes a mountain stream. The spring is enclosed by a small square winstone building, the water being collected in a hollow hewn out in the rock, from which it is drawn off by means of a pipe, and handed to the drinkers, containing the following constituents Specific gravity at 60° F. 1001068 Temperature Temperature of air 640° F. This also valuable aluminous sulphate chalybeate, springs from the bottom of a deep rocky ravine on the side of the mountain of the same name. It is distant five miles from Moffat, and there being no regular road part of the way, the generality of the drinkers of it have to obtain their supply from Mr. T. Hetherington, druggist, in the town. Hertfell Spa, which has a strong astringent taste, is most powerful after a fall of rain, and in the greatest perfection when wet is preceded by continued dry weather. It may be preserved for a lengthened period (without the ceremony of hermetical sealing) in a state of purity and efficiency. The spa was discovered by an eccentric individual, named John Williamson, in 1748, and is 1155 feet 15 By A. ESILMAN. THE estimation of ammonia by distilling with caustic alkali a known weight of any ammoniacal salt into standard dilute sulphuric acid, and determination of the acid thus neutralised, is one of those processes which are exact enough to satisfy the requirements of the scientific chemist, and capable of such rapidity of execution as to make them invaluable in the hands of the manufacturing chemist. With carefully standardised test acid and alkali solutions the results need not vary more than one or two-tenths per cent. Having had occasion within the last two years to use this volumetric method daily in the examination of gas liquors, and sulphates of ammonia made from the washings of gas oxide of iron, my attention has several times been drawn to some little discrepancies cropping up in spite of the greatest care. In investigating the causes of these differences, the question arose,-does the sulphocyanide present in the sulphate of ammonia as well as in the gas liquor decompose during the distillation under the influence of the excess of alkali? Sulphocyanides submitted to dry distillation with slaked alkalies produce large quantities of ammonia, and it was possible that a similar reaction might take place, though more slowly, at the boiling temperature. To test this point a solution of sulphate of ammonia containing four to five per cent of sulphocyanide was made and used for the following experiments, in which definite quantities were boiled for various lengths of time with different proportions in excess of the liberating alkali. The following results were obtained :UsingCaustic soda Carbonate of soda Per cent of Ammonia. 23.87 24'19 24'15 23.64 23'47 23.80 23.608 23.97 16 Formation and Constitution of Torbanite. CHEMICAL NEWS, NOTES ON THE FORMATION AND CONSTITU. By WILLIAM SKEY. (1.) That our commercial kerosenes are nearly or quite These results were sufficiently contradictory to confirm my suspicions, and also to raise the doubt that only after the complete removal of the sulphocyanogen could the ammonia be distilled and correctly determined. Before attempting to settle this point I resolved to make sure that there was no defect in the distilling apparatus. This IN prosecuting experiments previously detailed, upon the consisted of a twenty-ounce flask, generally filled half evolution of heat caused by mixing dry clay with various full, connected by glass and india-rubber tubing with two liquids, I noticed such an increase of temperature in the bottles, and so arranged that none of the boiling liquid in case of petroleum that I suspected an absorption of a porthe flask would be sucked over during sudden condensation of the matters dissolved in this liquid had occurred, tion. Pure water coloured with delicate pink litmus and so was led to investigate the matter further, when the solution was put into the bottles, and ammonia-free dilute following results were obtained:caustic soda solution into the flask; the latter was then boiled into the former. After a few minutes ebullition there was a gradual change in the coloured liquid. It became purple, then blue, and there was thus seen to be manifestly something at fault. The small flask was replaced by a large one, into which the distilling liquid was poured, occupying about half an inch at the bottom; but on slow boiling the same result was obtained, and not only once, but a dozen times. The interposition of a bulbed tube containing broken glass between the flask and bottles made no difference, thus showing that the alkali could not have been carried over mechanically. The same results were also obtained when milk of lime was employed in place of caustic soda, and yet neither of these alkalies could be found in the distillate. The aromaly, however, was soon explained :-On substituting bent glass tubing in place of the glass and india-rubber found so convenient, and continuing the distillation, no alteration in the colour of the pink litmus solution was observed, even after long boiling, and a portion of the distillate subjected to Nessler's test gave no indications of ammonia. When the india-rubber tubing was used once more, the distillate gave a very decided colour to Nessler's solution. Although I have not seen any published records of the absorbent powers of india-rubber tubing for ammonia, I can scarcely believe that it has so long escaped notice; and, considering its wide application, it may not be amiss in me to impress upon others the necessity of restricting its use to the utmost point consistent with flexibility in connecting apparatus. It is quite possible that the materials incorporated with the rubber during the manufacture, as gypsum for example, may be the cause of the disturbance; but this point I have not examined. Having then altered my connecting tubes so as to employ a minimum of india-rubber, I made the following experiments to ascertain the extent of the decomposition of the sulphocyanogen during distillation with various alkalies. A solution of sulphate of ammonia containing 4 per cent of sulphocyanogen was used. The results are as follows: (4.) That torbanite has the same effect as clay. (6.) That the same is true of diatomaceous earth (dry), (8.) That clay is similarly affected by hot paraffin. These results have, I believe, an important bearing upon our present theories as to the formation and constitution of the valuable mineral torbanite. As to the formation of this mineral, it plainly appears from them that clay strata will abstract the colouring matter of petroleum passing through them. If this process is carried on to a small extent we have only a feebly bituminous clay, but if carried on till the clay is saturated, or nearly so, we have a mineral which I believe has exactly the constitution of torbanite. During the formation of this mineral the petroleum passing through it would be purified to a greater or lesser extent. From what has been already stated, I feel sure the absorption is not of a mechanical but of a chemical nature, and this brings me to the next point, that is, the true constitution of the mineral in question, torbanite or bog. head coal. As to its constitution, this mineral is associated with the amber group in our best mineralogical works, and the earthy matter is thrown out of the formula. Now this is within small limits uniform in amount in the case of all the samples of this mineral yet analysed, being from 19 to 26 per cent, and it is essentially silicate of alumina that is anhydrous clay. I consider, therefore, the ash of this mineral is not an accidental element as it is now considered, but that it is an essential part of it,-that in fact torbanite is a combination of a bituminous kind of substance with clay, the water of the clay being either substituted by it or a bituminosilicate of alumina formed, which substance may have no affinity or but a very slight one for water. I should state that the coloring matters of petroleum and kerosene are in general terms described as of a bituminous nature-but whether bitumen itself is actually or universally present has not yet been demonstrated. However, these colouring matters are certainly oxidised hydrocarbons, and so class with bitumen and the combustible part of torbanite. Being thus oxidised hydrocarbons they can hardly fail to be of an acidic nature, and so the statement as to their capability to chemically combine with clays as shown, is one which a consideration of the basic nature of clay will, I think, greatly predispose us to admit to be a correct one. In conclusion, these results tend to indicate(1.) A cheap and expeditious method for purifying our coloured kerosenes, one in which there need hardly be any waste. (2.) That by using pure clay useful pigments may perhaps be obtained in this manner. (3.) That torbanite is not coal but a chemical combination of an acid hydrocarbon with silicate of alumina. In this assumption I accept for the present the popular opinion which maintains the ash of coal itself to be an accidental element. (4.) That our present formula for torbanite requires amendment so as to include earthy matters. I will only add that judging from the basic nature of alumina and the refusal of silica in any form to combine to a notable extent with any of the constituents of petroleum, it appears most likely it is the alumina of the earthy matters of torbanite to which the retention of its combustible part is due. This matter and the possibility or otherwise of substituting compounds of tin, iron, copper, &c., for that of alumina as absorbents of the substances named, is now engaging my attention, and so I trust to be able to give information upon these points at an early date. THE PRIESTLEY CELEBRATION AT NORTHUMBERLAND, PENNSYLVANIA.* THE year just closed has witnessed a celebration unique in history. Two nations have simultaneously done honour to the memory of an illustrious chemist who, a century ago, discovered oxygen and thus opened a new era in science. In England, in the very town where his house had been sacked and burned, his books and manuscripts scattered to the winds, his apparatus destroyed and his very life jeopardised, a statue has been erected to his honoured memory and inaugurated amidst public applause. In America, where he found a refuge,-not quite unassailed-the chemists of the great republic have met at his grave as the most suitable spot for a retrospect of the progress of chemistry. Their celebration was unclouded with any painful and humiliating memories. They could pay their tribute to the great departed with free spirits. Not so we on this side the Atlantic. Our festive ceremonial was at the same time an act of national penitence. We remember with shame the folly and the brutality of our forefathers. We blush for the statesmen, the magistrates, the clergy, the publicists who instigated this outrage and applauded its perpetrators. We ask ourselves, too how far we are really removed from scenes like the great Birmingham riot. No writer, lecturer, or thinker is now, indeed, in peril of having his house pulled down. But do not recent very recent-events warn us that our vaunted toleration of unpopular opinions is merely "The inquisition rebaptised, The old brute torture spiritualised." As a proof of the hatred which has followed the memory of Priestley, even into the second half of the present century, we may mention that, in 1851, a chemist-whose name is immaterial-delivered at a Mechanics' Institute near Manchester a lecture on the life and discoveries of Priestley. For this he was threatened with the loss of an appointment which he at that time held, and was subjected to every practicable mode of persecution and annoyance. This was the more gratuitous, since in the lecture he confined himself strictly to a review of Priestley's chemical and physical * From the American Chemist, Nos. 50 and 51, 1874. researches, and entirely abstained from discussing his theological and metaphysical labours. If, then, we as a nation have learnt to take a calmer and a higher view of Joseph Priestley, and if we feel, as we ought, sincerely ashamed of our conduct towards him, it must be owned that our progress since the year of the Great Exhibition has been rapid indeed. In the last century, the President of the Royal Society was asked to procure a refutation or condemnation of some of the electrical discoveries of Bencharacter of the American philosopher. In this century a jamin Franklin, on account of the republican and rebellious man has been forbidden to lecture on the discovery of oxygen, because its discoverer was a unitarian in religion! It is hard to say which demand was the more absurd and the more tyrannical. From a scientific point of view the position of Priestley is most remarkable. At no period of his life did chemistry take up the whole or even the greater part of his time and attention. It may even be doubted whether he was thoroughly well acquainted with the science as then understood. Yet in spite of these drawbacks he was able to make the most remarkable and fruitful discoveries. There is perhaps no second instance of a man achieving such great things for science amidst so many distracting pursuits. Some persons have regretted the multifarious character of his studies, and have maintained that he might and would have accomplished far greater things had he confined himself to one subject. We do not share this view. Priestley acted in accordance with his own faculties, character, and early training, and the result is patent to the world. Had he flourished at an earlier date chemistry would probably have never attracted his attention. If now living he would probably never have been able to attain the nicety of modern experimental research, and would not have taken time to master the intricacies of modern theories. Coming upon the stage when he did he was able to render the most important services to science and to the world and to win for himself an undying reputation. It is singular that so ardent a reformer in politics and theology should, in chemical theory, prove so decided a conservative. Curious, too, that he should to the last defend the phlogiston theory which his own discoveries had undermined. All honour, however, to the martyr of Birmingham, and may his memory ever prove a band of brotherhood between the men of science in the land of his birth and in that of his death. THE VERTICAL LANTERN. Ar the late Industrial Exhibition of the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, as also at the like Exhibition of the American Institute in New York, silver medals were awarded for the apparatus shown in the accompanying figure, which is manufactured by Messrs. George Wale and Co., instrument makers to the Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, N.J. In its present remarkably efficient state of development this apparatus owes much to one of our frequent contributors, Professor Morton, as well as to the mechanical ingenuity of Mr. Wale, and has gone into very general use in the principal colleges of the United States. The cut (taken from a photograph) shows the apparatus as adjusted to exhibit on the screen such objects as waves in water, cohesion figures, and the like. The light from the lime cylinder or electric arc passes through two large lenses, by which it is thrown in a parallel beam on an inclined mirror in the triangular box in front. By this it is reflected upwards, and is condensed by a large box, so as to pass into the objective above, and is then by lens standing horizontally on top of the same triangular the small upper mirror thrown on a screen. mirror, with the objective, is carried by a bar provided with rackwork, by which an accurate adjustment for focus can be made. This upper The objects rest directly on the plate holding the large horizontal condenser. When the apparatus is to be used for ordinary objects which can be held in a vertical position, a little screw in the front of the horizontal plate is taken out, and then the triangular box carrying the lower mirror is removed, allowing the horizontal plate to swing down into a vertical position, carrying with it the rackwork bar and objective into their proper positions. NOTICES OF BOOKS. Address Delivered before the British Association, assembled at Belfast, with Additions. By JOHN TYNDALL, F.R.S., President. Seventh Thousand. London: Longmans, Green, and Co. THE interest excited by this Address when first delivered in September last, seems far from diminishing. It certainly lays before the public no novel facts, the fruit of recent research; no profound and startling generalisations, heretofore strange to the general public. There is nothing which was not fully known to men of science, and not only so, but to all persons of respectable culture. Nor is any new mode of philosophising recommended for the first time. As the author reminds us in his preface, he has, in former essays and papers, claimed for Science the right of passing the bounds of experience, and this claim has provoked no general outcry. Yet now any one not alive to the progress of discovery for the last quarter of a century, and to the views prevalent among the most advanced thinkers, might be led to suppose that some great and alarming revelation had been for the first time announced. The sermons, lectures, resolutions, memorials, letters, and leaders which have appeared on the subject would form, in themselves, almost a library. On the other hand, Prof. Tyndall has published his Address first with one preface, explanatory and controversial, and subsequently with a second. In these prefaces we are round to declare that there is no appearance of, and no attempt at, recantation. What he said at Belfast the author is willing to abide by. He explains, but he does not seek away. Only, and with fullest right, he objects to being held responsible for words which he never ut {CHEMICAL NEWS, January 8, 1875 tered. Of that sophism which consists in imputing to an opponent views he has never expressed the anti-Tyndallian writings furnish typical specimens. We might assume that any one claiming the position of a scholar and a gentleman would, before uttering a severe and sweeping condemnation of an Address like that before us, at least have taken the trouble to read it, and any available documents bearing upon it. To neglect such easy means of arriving at the truth is more than irrational,-it is profoundly immoral. We quote an instance from the author's earlier preface:-"An evening paper of the first rank, after the ascription of various more or less questionable aims and motives, proceeds to the imputation that I permitted the cheers of my audience to stimulate' me to the utterance of words which no right-minded man, without a sense of the gravest responsibility, could employ. I trust the author of this charge will allow me, in all courtesy, to assure him that the words ascribed by him to the spur of the moment were written in Switzerland; that they stood in the printed copy of the Address from which I read; that they evoked no cheers,' but a silence far more impressive than cheers." To take another instance :-" In the Times of Nov. 9th he (the Bishop of Manchester) is reported to have expressed himself thus: In his lecture in Manchester Prof. Tyndall as much as said that at Belfast he was not in his best moments.' Now, considering that a verbatim report of the lecture was at hand in the Manchester Examiner, and that my own corrected edition of it was to be had for a penny, the Bishop, I submit, might have afforded to repeat what I actually said, instead of what I 'as much as said.' I am sorry to add that his rendering of my words is a vain imagination of his own. In my lecture at Manchester there was no reference, expressed or implied, to my moods in Belfast." Such cases as these need, surely, no comment. sailants whom he selects from the throng, it is questionable But, ably as Prof. Tyndall deals with those of his aswhether these prefaces are not a mistake. If he has advanced too confidently the hypotheses as yet doubtful,if he has strayed too far from the clear daylight of the inductive philosophy into a visionary twilight, he must be judged by his peers, by men of science, not by ecclesiastics. To the Cullens and the Magees, the Frazers and the Capels, his plea ought to be "non coram judice." We cannot here pass over the claim advanced by Monsignor Capel as to the right of his Church, or any Church, to determine what true Science is. Such claims have not even the shadow of validity. We should as readily accept the decision of the Committee of the Stock Exchange, or of the Guardians of St. Pancras! Only men of science, acting as such, have either the right or the power to pronounce what true Science is. The mere attempt on the part of others, be they prelates or ploughboys, is intrusive charlatanism. Into an examination of the views put forward by Prof. Tyndall we can the less enter as the Address touches not at all upon Chemistry, and scarcely upon Physics. Its main sphere is the science of life. The main questions which it raises relate to the passage from the inorganic to the organic, to the origin of sensibility and consciousness. These are subjects which have hitherto defied explanation, and have been set apart as inscrutable mysteries before which man must be content to pause and wonder. There are minds who enjoy such a position, and who positively applaud when Science is obliged to confess her limitations. But the true philosopher will never exchange Bacon's inspiring watch-word "Plus ultra!" for an anile "Rest and be thankful." As in inorganic science, we shall from failure learn the secret of success. A Roman senate went out to salute Varra, the defeated of Cannæ, because he had not despaired of his country. Can we pay any smaller tribute to the minds who are now grappling with the most difficult problems that have ever confronted human intelligence? They may be mistaken, more or less gravely, but they are, at least, working. Is it seemly that their NEWS attention should be distracted by the discordant cries of those who, in former ages, reviled-in the same mannerCopernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and Newton? The Induction of Sleep and Insensibility to Pain by the Self-Administration of Anesthetics. J. M. CROMBIE, M.A., M.D. London: J. and A. Churchill, THE object of this pamphlet is to describe an apparatus by means of which patients requiring relief from pain may conveniently administer anaesthetics to themselves. The author points out that in self-administration there is little or no fear of an over-dose, since "the inhalation of the vapour ceases whenever the patient begins to sleep, and this because it is dependent on certain movements of the hand, which are arrested by the approach of sleep." Whilst fully admitting the value of this idea, we cannot refrain from asking whether there is not a certain element of danger in facilitating the self-administration of anæsthetics? An old medical friend of ours contends that the growing love for narcotics, anaesthetics, and in short for whatever is "soothing," is a most serious symptom of physical degeneracy in the human race, and that these drugs, in the long run, augment the very evils which they temporarily relieve. Report of the Sanitary Committee of the Board of Health on the Concentration and Regulation of the Business of Slaughtering Animals in the City of New York. New York: D. Appleton and Co. It is small consolation to us in London to learn that New York is suffering from the same sanitary-or rather unsanitary-evils as ourselves. On both sides of the Atlantic Science has pleaded long and earnestly against intramural graveyards, slaughter-houses, cesspools, sewers ventilated into streets and dwellings, &c. It now only remains for fever, cholera, and dysentery, to speak in ridden public cannot fail to hear. The only misfortune is that the innocent must suffer with the guilty, and the scorned and neglected prophet perish with those whose purblind selfishness opposed his teachings. tones which even the deafest and most vested-interest The New York Board of Health propose to abolish all slaughtering of cattle within the city, and to establish abattoirs in suitable places. We wish them success in so necessary an undertaking. copper on the other. With the chlorides of gold and of zinc no decomposition was produced. The apparatus consisted of a split tube containing the solution to be experimented upon, and plunged in a larger tube containing a solution of an alkaline sulphide. The action was augmented by means of two slips of platinum in connection with a battery, the positive being immersed in the metallic solution and the negative in the sulphide. Intervention of Physico-Chemical Forces in Vital Phenomena.-M. Becquerel. The author thinks that the electro-capillary forces play the greatest part in organic beings. These forces requires for their production merely permeable tissues separating two liquids of different natures, and find, consequently, in the organism the conditions necessary for their origin. Their existence, direction, and intensity are easily proved. The author found arterial blood negative with venous blood, instead of being positive as M. Scoutetten announced. On Magnetism.-M. J. M. Gaugain.-A continuation from Comptes Rendus Jan. 13th, June 30th, Sept. 8th and 29th, Nov. 10th, and Dec. 2nd, 1873; and March 22nd, June 1st and 15th, Sept. 7th, and Oct. 5th, 1874. It is not adapted for abstraction. The author Ureides of Pyvuric Acid, Synthesis of a Homologue of Allantoin.-M. E. Grimaux.-(See Comptes Rendus, 1874, vol. lxxix., p. 526.) Uric acid and its congeners, sarcin and xanthine, appear to be derived from the residues of aldehydic or acetonic acids. has studied the action of urea on an acetonic acid, the pyvuric, in order to obtain bodies of a constitution analogous to those of the uric series. In a former communication he has shown that this reaction is very complex and gives rise to divers bodies according to the relative proportions of acid and of urea. In the present memoir he describes the derivative obtained when an excess of urea is allowed to act upon pyvuric acid. To prepare it, two parts of urea, finely powdered, are moistened with one part of the acid boiling at 160° to 170°, and the mixture is kept for some hours at 100°. The mass becomes liquid, gives off pure carbonic acid, then it grows turbid, and is filled with a solid matter. When the reaction is over the whole is taken up in an excess of boiling alcohol, filtered, and the residue dissolved in ten times its weight of boiling water. The filtrate, on cooling, deposits white brilliant crystals, of the composition C5H8N403. This body, pyvurite, is insoluble in alcohol and ether, sparingly soluble in boiling water, but soluble in ten times its weight of boiling water. It dissolves in ammonia, but without forming with it a combination. If dried in the air it does not lose water below 145°. At 155° it begins to lose weight and is con CHEMICAL NOTICES FROM FOREIGN verted into a new substance, insoluble in boiling water SOURCES. NOTE. All degrees of temperature are Centigrade, unless otherwise ammonical vapours, and leaving a residue of charcoal. If expressed. Comptes Rendus Hebdomadaires des Seances de l'Academie des Sciences, No. 23, December 7, 1874. Results produced by the Joint Action of a Battery and of Electro-capillary Currents.-M. Becquerel. The author has investigated the possibility of augmenting or decreasing the intensity of electro-capillary action by the aid of the current of a battery of several elements. Among the bodies experimented upon was the chloride of chrome, which yielded an intense black deposit. This was found to be a hydrated sesquioxide of chrome; the black colour is due to some peculiar molecular arrangement, and the crystallisation belongs to the regular system. Perchloride of iron yielded also a black, crystalline deposit consisting of hydrated sesquisulphide. Chloride of bismuth also deposited the sulphide of the metal. Acetate of lead deposited metallic lead in a very brilliant state. Nitrate of copper yielded a brilliant deposit of metallic copper on the negative surface and crystalline sulphide of but soluble in alkalies, whence it is re-precipitated by all acids, even the carbonic. If more strongly heated, pyruvite is destroyed without melting, giving off cyanic and boiled with baryta water it yields urea, of which a part is converted into carbonate of ammonia, oxalate, and a small quantity of a soluble salt of baryta. Pyruvite does not precipitate metallic salts, except with nitrate of mercury, with which it forms a copious white precipitate, A mixture of aqueous solution of pynurite and of nitrate of silver gives a bulky white precipitate on the addition of potash. Observations on the Species of the Genus Phylloxera.-M. Signoret. Method followed for the Discovery of the Substance most Efficacious against the Phylloxera, at the Viticultural Station at Cognag.-Max Corny. Solutions of Chrome Alum.-M. D. Gernez.-It is generally admitted that solutions of chrome alum which have been rendered green by heat return spontaneously and gradually to the violet modification, and deposit the alumn in the shape of regular octahedra. On the other hand, the crystals have been known to remain green for months without depositin alum. If we make a hot con |