Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 73 



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specific gravity, less perfect malleability, and its affording, by che- 

 mical trials, a considerable portion of iron. 



2. Gold. — I found few grains of gold in the platina-sand : these 

 were partly gold-yellow, partly grayish- yellow. Is Werner's grayish- 

 yellow gold, gold combined with platina ? 



3. Irid-osmin. — This species, which is a compound of iridium 

 and osmium, presents the following characters : 



The colour is not steel-gray, as is generally believed, but a mid- 

 dle colour between whitish lead-gray and common lead-gray. It 

 occurs crystallized in low hexagonal prisms, which have an axoto- 

 mous cleavage. Hardness =8-0—8-75. Is imperfectly malleable. 

 Specific gravity = 17*969-18-571. 



It would be desirable to have iridium and osmium again examined. 

 Iridium will probably be found to possess a higher specific gravity 

 than platina, and probably belong to the tessular system. The os- 

 mium, on the contrary, appears to belong to the electro-negative 

 metals, which possess a hexagonal crystallization, such as arsenic, 

 tellurium, and antimony. 



4. Silver-white fiat grains. — They appear to be palladium. 

 Concluding Remark. — In the portion of platina-sand I examined, 



the large half was ferruginous platina, the smaller common or true 

 platina. The remaining grains composed about ^th part of the 

 whole. 



In the Phil. Mag. and Annals for November, we gave a notice of 

 Professor Ossann's having discovered various new metals in the 

 Uralean platina. From the following account, by the same Pro- 

 fessor, it appears that there are several varieties of it. 



The platina, from ore of the Urals, is more varied in character 

 than that found in America. — I have already been enabled to di- 

 stinguish four different sorts, and I am told there are still more. 

 One of the kinds, that which is most abundant, is sold at the mint 

 in Petersburg. It consists of grains of different descriptions. Small 

 grains can be separated by means of the magnet, resembling the 

 magnetic grains in the platina of Brazil. The other grains are partly 

 of* a lighter and darker lead-gray colour, and about a line in diame- 

 ter, — partly of a gold -yellow colour; and some are small, flattisb, 

 and shining metallic. In the following analysis I used the bluish- 

 gray coloured grains. The following results were obtained in so- 

 luble matter : 



Palladium 1-64- 



Rhodium 11-07 



Platina 80-87 



Copper 2-05 



Iron 2-30 



Sulphur 0-79 



Trace of Iridium. 



Residuum 0-11 



98-83 

 Poggendorf's Journal. 



New Series. Vol. 3. No. 13. Jan. 1828. L new 



