16G ANNUAL OP SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



JARGONIUM. 



In the last volume of this Annual, a statement was made of 

 the fact that Mr. Sorby, in the course of an examination of the 

 absorption-spectra given by zirconia and other earths, found that 

 certain specimens of jargon from Ceylon yielded a spectrum of so 

 marked a character as to lead to the supposition of the existence 

 of a new element, to which he gave the name of jargonium. Up- 

 on analyzing the jargon a quantity of substance was obtained 

 which, while resembling zirconia, was sufficiently distinct from it 

 to warrant the supposition of its being the oxide of a new metal. 

 At the same time the element uranium failed to reveal itself in 

 the course of ordinary or spectral analysis. In February of the 

 last % year Mr. Sorby read a paper before the Royal Society * de- 

 scribing more recent experiments, which show that the absorption- 

 bands which seemed to indicate the presence of a new element 

 are really due to a mixture of the oxides of zirconium and ura- 

 nium, and this reaction is so delicate as to give evidence of the 

 presence of uranium when the amount is extremely small. He 

 found that, in the case of transparent blowpipe beads of borax 

 with microcosmic salt, it is requisite to have about as much as 

 one-fiftieth grain of protoxide of uranium to show faintly the 

 characteristic absorption-bands; whereas when present along 

 with zirconia in crystalline beads, one-fifty-thousandth grain gives 

 an equally well-marked spectrum, and one-two-thousandth grain 

 shows it far better than a larger quantity, which makes the bead 

 too opaque. 



MANUFACTURE OF CHLORINE. 



Wddorfs Process. In the last volume of the " Annual of Scien- 

 tific Discovery " mention was made of the process invented by 

 Walter Weklon, for the utilization of the chloride of manganese 

 residues from the chlorine manufacture by the production from 

 the same of a compound which he calls manganite of calcium, 

 which is used again to generate chlorine. This process has been 

 extensively adopted in England within the last year or two, and 

 at the meeting of the British Association at Liverpool, 1870, the 

 inventor of the process read a paper, f giving further details, and 

 at the same time he exhibited a model of the apparatus employed. 



The following is an abstract of this paper: The vessels com- 

 prised in this apparatus are arranged at 5 successive elevations, 

 so that after having been pumped up to the highest of them the 

 liquor operated upon can afterwards descend to all the others by 

 its own gravity. The lowest of these vessels is a well, which is 

 furnished with a mechanical agitator. The slightly acid chloride 

 of manganese liquor with which the process commences runs from 

 the stilTs in which it is produced into this well, and is there 

 treated with finely divided carbonate of calcium, the action of which 



* Chcrn. News, xxi., p. 73, American Preprint, vi., p. 193. 



f Printed in the "Ckem. News" for Sept. 23, 1870, Vol. xxii., p. 145. 



