Prof. Hiinefeld on Titaniferous Iron-slag. 121 



continuity is essentially universal, and that a breach of it is 

 metaphysically, as well as physically, impossible. 



The severest test to which the validity of this mode of rea- 

 soning can be put, is to apply it to the pure mathematical re- 

 lations of space and quantity, to which, if the law of continuity 

 have any necessary existence in the nature of things, it ought 

 to apply with the greatest rigour. We find, accordingly, that 

 all the changes of magnitude in those quantities of which the 

 value is dependent on that of certain other quantities, accom- 

 pany corresponding changes in these latter quantities, in a 

 manner strictly conformable with the law of continuity. 

 [To be continued.] 



XXII. On the Titaniferous Iron-slag of Kbnigshiitte in Upper- 

 Silesia, and on the Probability of its containing Tantalium. 

 By Prof Hunefeld, of Greifsvoalde* . 



A LTHOUGH the investigations of Wollaston, Walchner, 

 •*** Rose, Du Menil, Cordier, Vauquelin, Peschier, Berzelius, 

 Zinken, Schrader, Karsten, and others, have shown that tita- 

 nium is widely distributed, it has been nowhere found in great 

 quantities. Wollaston found it in 1822 in the slag of the great 

 iron-works at Merthyr Tydvil in Wales, in regular pale cop- 

 per-coloured cubes f ; and Walchner found the same in the slag 

 of the pea-iron-ore of the High-furnace of Kandern in Baden J; 

 and Karsten, before this, in those of the Konigshutte§. Kar- 

 sten's observation has been but rarely mentioned, and has 

 been especially neglected by Berzelius. It seems to me that it 

 is particularly calculated to extend our knowledge of titanium 

 (at least for the German chemists) ; and this has induced me 

 to give an account of the titaniferous slag of the Konigshu tte, 

 which I examined in 1824 at Breslau. I must however pre- 

 mise, that I had then no opportunity of combining the investi- 

 gation, as to quantity, with that as to the nature of the sub- 

 stances. 



The slag containing titanium, which was given to me for 

 examination by my friend M. Miiller, was thickly covered 

 and filled with pale copper-coloured cubes of titanium ; and 

 I found that Dr. Wollaston' s description was applicable to 

 them in all respects. Peschier, it is well known, has declared 

 it to be titanate of iron, of which, however, too little proof has 

 been offered for it to be admitted as a fact ||. 



* From Schweigger's Jahrbuch, N. S. Band xx. p. 332. 

 f See Philosophical Magazine, vol. lxii. p. 18. and lxiii. p. 15. 

 X Ibid. vol. lxvi. p. 124. § Karsten's Archiv. iii. 524. 



|| Walchner has declared himself decidedly against this opinion, and 

 New Series. Vol. 3. No. 14. Feb. 1828. R A por- 



