form powder, consisting of lemon-yellow clear grains, without crystalline form. Analysis showed them to contain forty-eight per cent. of silver.

Boisbaudran, in a paper on the physical properties of his new metal, gallium, states that it fuses at about +29.5°, and therefore liquefies readily when held in the hand. It maintains the liquid condition with great persistence, a fragment having remained liquid for the month of February, capable of being united and separated, like mercury. When solid it is remarkably hard, resembling aluminum. It crystallizes readily, does not oxidize at a red heat, and is not volatile. Its density is 4.7, approximately.

Boisbaudran subsequently presented to the French Academy a specimen of gallium crystallized in the form of octahedrons truncated at the base. They appear to be clinorhombic.

Cresti has described a very delicate test for copper. Two small wires, one of zinc the other of platinum, connected at one end, are placed in the solution suspected to contain this metal. A black deposit appears on the platinum wire. To test this, it is washed and placed while still moist in a mixture of hydrogen-bromide gas and bromine vapor (such as is obtained by acting on potassium bromide by strong sulphuric acid). The deposit, if copper, becomes a deep violet liquid, especially distinct when placed on a white plate, which the author believes to be a solution of cuprous bromide in hydrogen bromide. Copper may thus be detected in a few cubic centimeters of a one-millionth solution.

Thudichum and Hake have made a series of experiments on metallic copper and its power of occluding hydrogen, with a view to test the question of its influence upon the accuracy of those organic analyses in which it is used. From the results obtained they conclude (1) that copper-wire gauze which has never been used, when oxidized and subsequently reduced in a current of hydrogen, being allowed to cool in the gas, occludes a very appreciable amount of it, being about 0.6 milligram per 100 grams of copper; and (2) that the gauze loses this property after several repetitions of the process. The error introduced into analysis is therefore trivial.

Eccles, working in Thorpe's laboratory, has found that the

copper-zinc couple of Gladstone and Tribe reduces potassium chlorate readily, but is entirely without action on the perchlorate. By means of this reaction he has studied the character of the decomposition of the chlorate by heat, and proves that no perchlorate is formed when manganese dioxide is used.

Shaw and Carnelley have examined the question of the protecting action of copper sulphide upon metallic copper. Two pieces of this metal were taken, exactly alike, one of them immersed in dilute ammonium sulphide till coated with copper sulphide, and then both placed in water, with and without access of air, and in various saline solutions. The results showed that previous washing with ammonium sulphide increases the action of distilled water on copper when exposed in open vessels, but lessens it when air is excluded, while in the case of saline solutions the action is diminished even when air has free access.

Muir has studied the action of various saline solutions upon lead, from which he draws the general conclusion that the action upon lead of those saline solutions which he has examined results, in the first place, in the production of a salt other than the hydrocarbonate; that carbon dioxide, slowly absorbed from the air, produces hydrocarbonate, which is precipitated; and that certain salts, such as ammonium nitrate and calcium chloride, accelerate the production of the soluble lead salt.

Hermann has made an extended investigation on the tantalum group of metals, and has discovered a new metal in this group, which he calls Neptunium, and which has an atomic weight of 118. The mineral in which the metal was detected was columbite, from Haddam, Connecticut.

The same investigator takes occasion to reaffirm the genuineness of his discovery of another metallic element, Ilmenium, announced some years ago. This announcement was at the time strongly opposed by the eminent chemists Rose and Marignac, and with such plausibility that Hermann publicly withdrew his claim to a new discovery. Hermann, in the same publication in which he announces the discovery of neptunium, takes occasion to reaffirm the genuineness of his former discovery of ilmenium, and points out that his eminent critics were in error, having been misled by employing impure materials.

Close upon the above-named highly important announcements of Hermann comes the publication of a communication by M. Prat, made to the Société des Sciences Physique et Naturelles de Bordeaux, in which he claims also to have discovered a new metallic element, which he names (in honor of Lavoisier) Lavoesium. The author appears to have isolated the metal, which is described to possess a silvery white color and eminent malleability. It forms crystallizable and colorless salts. It appears, according to the author, to be related to copper in many of its reactions. He affirms, however, that its spectroscopic behavior, its silvery white color, and its reactions with ammonia and ferro-cyanide of potassium constitute properties which distinguish it from every other known metal.

Duvillier has proposed a process for recovering from platinum precipitates and residues the metal contained in them, which consists in placing them in a boiling solution of sodium hydrate, to which is gradually added a solution of sodium formate. The liquid effervesces and deposits the platinum in a pulverulent form, whence it can be converted directly into chloride.

H. Sainte-Claire Deville and Debray have prepared ruthenium in a pure form, and have carefully examined its properties. Its density they find to be 12.261. A number of new compounds of this metal are described. They also prepared pure osmium, and find that is the heaviest of the platinum metals, its density being 22.447.

ORGANIC.

Kopfer has proposed the use of finely divided platinum, either in the form of sponge or black, for the filling of combustion tubes in organic analysis, instead of copper oxide, the combustion being carried on in a stream of oxygen. For ordinary purposes the tube is only thirty-five centimeters long, fifteen centimeters being filled with the platinum mixed with asbestus. Only three burners are necessary to heat the tube, a fourth being used to heat the substance. The results obtained by the method are apparently good.

Friedel and Crafts have proposed a new and general method for the synthesis of hydrocarbons, which consists simply in treating organic chlorides with aluminum chloride. If a

mixture of a hydrocarbon and a chloride be treated in this way, as, for example, a solution of amyl chloride in benzene, hydrogen chloride gas is evolved, and the liquid separates into two layers, the upper containing the resulting hydrocarbonin this case amyl-benzene, dissolved in the excess of benzene -and the lower the unaltered aluminum chloride. Ethylbenzene, methyl-benzene (toluene), dimethyl-benzene (xylene), trimethyl-benzene (mesitylene), tetramethyl-benzene (durene), diphenyl-methane, triphenyl-methane, and even tetraphenyl-methane have been made in this way, as well as benzophenone, acetophenone, phthalophenone, anthraqui none, and other acetones. The chlorides of zinc and of iron (ferric chloride) have a similar but less energetic action.

Latschinoff has proposed to establish a new series of homologous bodies, the successive terms of which shall differ from the preceding ones by C,Hg, instead of CH2, as in ordinary homologues. Camphor and the terpenes belong to such a series, and hence the author proposes to denominate the series a ter-homologous or a campho-homologous series.

Pierre has communicated to the French Academy his experiments to test the question of the existence of sugar in the leaves of the sugar-beet, where it is undoubtedly elaborated. The difficulty of extracting the sugar as such led him to adopt the much simpler method of fermenting the entire juice, distilling off the alcohol, and calculating from this the amount of sugar present. From 158 kilograms of leaves, coarsely chopped, thirty to thirty-five liters of juice were expressed, which, after fermentation for five or six days, yielded on distillation 275 cubic centimeters of alcohol of 68 per cent., corresponding to 198 cubic centimeters of absolute alcohol. Hence the leaves from one hectare of ground would yield 173 liters of absolute alcohol. This corresponds to 350 kilograms of sugar per hectare.

Prunier has continued his researches upon quercite, and has obtained other products than benzene in reacting upon it by excess of hydriodic acid. Among these are hexyl hydride, quinone and hydroquinone, and phenol. The author hence regards this sugar as intermediate between the fatty and the aromatic series.

Beute has identified the sugar obtained by boiling carrageen moss with very dilute sulphuric acid for a long time

with levulose. It reduces silver and copper solutions, forms oxalic acid when oxidized by nitric acid, does not crystallize, and rotates the polarized ray to the left, though its rotatory power appears to be weak.

Krusemann has studied the reduction-products of levulose, and at the same time those of glucose, in order to compare these two sugars together. The reduction was effected by sodium-amalgam, and the substance obtained was the same for both, and identical with mannite. The constitutional formula proposed by Fittig for this body will require modification.

Berthelot several years ago discovered a new complex sugar in the Briançon manna, an exudation from the larch, to which he gave the name of melezitose. Villiers has now identified with this a sugar obtained from Lahore, and there known as turanjbin, being an exudation from Albagi maumorum, a spiny bush belonging to the leguminosa.

Vincent has examined the products obtained by the dry distillation, in close vessels, of the residue left after fermenting beet-root molasses, called vinasse. He has identified methylamine, methyl alcohol, sulphide and cyanide, hydrocyanic acid, formic, acetic, propionic, butyric, valeric, and caproic acids, phenol, and a series of liquid bases.

Brunner and Brandenburg have succeeded in detecting succinic acid in the juice of unripe grapes. They were led to examine for it by the fact that nascent hydrogen, acting on ethyl oxalate, produced tartaric acid and glycolic acid. The same reduction process the authors believe, therefore, to go on in the plant.

Hermann has observed an interesting and novel formation of salicylic acid by the prolonged action of sodium on succinic ether. Since succinic acid belongs to the fatty series, while salicylic acid belongs to the aromatic, the result is a conversion of one into the other-a rare thing in organic chemistry. Moreover, the constitution of the former enables that of the latter to be fixed with certainty.

Perkin has effected a simpler synthesis of coumarin (the odorous principle of the Tonka-bean, the melilot, etc.) by boil ing salicyl hydride with acetic oxide and sodium acetate. With other aromatic aldehydes other syntheses were effected, some of them of great interest.

Baeyer, the successor of Liebig at Munich, has published