114 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



NATIVE SULPHURIC ACID IN TEXAS. 



According to a communication presented to the British 

 Association by Professor J. W. Mallet, of the University of 

 Virginia, sulphuric acid occurs native in certain pools in the 

 midst of the open prairie to the westward of the Nueces River, 

 in Texas. These pools are strongly acid, owing to the presence 

 of free sulphuric acid combined with various salts, especially 

 of aluminum and iron sulphates. At the bottom of some of 

 these lakes there is a deposit in which sulphur is largely 

 present. 



A kind of petroleum is sometimes found oozing from the 

 soil to such an extent that sods taken up with the spade can 

 be ignited, and produce a considerable amount of light. Pro- 

 fessor Mallet was informed by Confederate officers serving 

 west of the Mississippi during the late war that during the 

 blockade of Southern ports the galvanic batteries of the tele- 

 graphic offices in Texas and Southern Louisiana were worked 

 with this sulphuric acid. 1 A, September 27, 1872, 147. 



REDUCING POWER OF NASCENT HYDROGEN. 



Active reducing properties are generally attributed to hy- 

 drogen liberated from palladium, which may have absorbed 

 it as the negative pole of an electrical circuit. Graham cites, 

 as remarkable evidence of this, the conversion of ferri-cyanide 

 of potassium into ferro-cyanide, and of sesqui-salts of iron into 

 proto-salts. Professor Bottger states, however, as the result 

 of his investigations, that palladium and some other metals, 

 as thallium magnesium, and arsenic, possess of themselves 

 such power, without previous absorption of hydrogen, when 

 placed in solutions of certain salts, especially of ferri-cyanide 

 of potassium and of sesqui-chloride of iron. He suggests, as 

 an experiment corroborative of the above, the placing of a 

 clean piece of palladium foil in one half per cent, solution of 

 ferri-cyanide of potassium, and after the lapse often minutes 

 testing the solution with a sesqui-salt of iron for ferro-cyan- 

 ide. 15 C\ 1872, 274. 



