810 Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 



•6 



he says have not been previously noticed. When natural or artifi- 

 cial urea is decomposed by heat, there is produced, besides a large 

 quantity of carbonate of ammonia, towards the end of the operation 

 a smell of cyanic acid resembling that of acetic acid, precisely as 

 occurs during the distillation of cyanate of mercury or uric acid, 

 and especially urate of mercury. By the distillation of urea, a 

 white substance is also obtained, the properties of which are under 

 examination. 



If cyanate of ammonia be similar to urea, then the composition 

 of the former as obtained by calculation should resemble that of 

 the latter ; assuming one atom of water in cyanate of ammonia, as 

 in all ammoniacal salts which contain any, and adopting Frout's 

 analysis of urea as the most correct, it consists of 



Azote 46-650 4 atoms. 



Carbon 19-975 2 



Hydrogen 6-670 8 



Oxygen 26-650 



99-945 

 Cyanate of ammonia should consist of 56-92 cyanic acid, 28-14 

 ammonia, and 1474 water, which give as its elements : 



Azote 46*78 4 atoms. 



Carbon 20-19 2 



Hydrogen 6-59 8 



Oxygen 26-64 



By the combustion of cyanic acid by means of oxide of copper, two 

 volumes carbonic acid gas, and one volume of azote are obtained; but 

 by the combustion of cyanate of ammonia, there should be procured 

 equal volumes of these gases, which is what Prout actually found in 

 the combustion of urea. — Annates de Chimie, April 1828. 



NATIVE IRON IN THE UNITED STATES. 



In the second volume of the Phil. Mag. and Annals, at p. 71, 

 will be found an account of a variety of native iron found on Ca- 

 naan mountain in Connecticut, extracted from Silliman's Journal. 

 In the last Number of that Journal, which we have lately received, 

 are the following particulars of the situation in which the iron was 

 found, and of the probable existence of a mass of native iron at that 

 spot. They are contained in Prof. E. Hitchcock's " Miscellaneous 

 Notices of Mineral Localities." 



" Sept. 6th, Canaan, Connecticut. — This is an interesting region, 

 both to the geologist and mineralogist. We were attracted thither, 

 principally by the hope of discovering the spot from which the na- 

 tive iron was obtained, that was recently announced in this Journal. 

 We called upon Major Burrall, who, in search of the iron which he 

 formerly obtained from this mountain, had recently visited it again, 

 in company with his son, Mr. Wm. Burrall. a graduate of Yale- 

 College, and Dr. Reed. Major B. not being able to go with us to 

 the spot, the two other gentlemen just named, conducted us. About 

 two miles north of the meeting-house, in the south parish in Canaan, 



