CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 271 



sense of an actual transmutation, it does not follow that we should despair 

 of a final success. It is not likely that nature has made fifty elementary sub- 



f tf it 



stances of a metallic form, many of them so closely resembling one another 

 as to be with difficulty distinguished ; morcoyer, chlorine and other elemen- 

 tary substances can be changed by the influence of sun-light in some respects 

 permanently ; and if silycr has not thus far been transmuted into a more 

 noble metal, as platinum and gold, it has at all eycnts been transmuted into 

 something which is not silver. Those Avho will reflect a little on the matter 

 cannot fail to observe that the sun-rays possess many of the powers once 

 fabulously imputed to the powder of projection and the philosopher's stone. 



DIFFERENT CONDITIONS OF SULPHUR. 



Among the chemical researches in France during the last few months, we 

 would refer to those of Berthelot on sulphur, the allotropic states of which 

 element have appeared to be numerous and varied. Berthelot reduces all to 

 two principal states, viz., that of octahedral, sulphur, soluble in sulphuret of 

 carbon, and that of amorphous sulphur, insoluble in this sulphuret. The 

 former he calls electro-negative sulphur, for it acts always as a supporter of 

 combustion, and separates from compounds in which it plays an electro-nega- 

 tive part (as SH, S 2 C). The insoluble sulphur, on the contrary, is combus- 

 tible or electro-positive, and separates from compounds in which it plays an 

 electro-positive part (SO 2 , SO 3 , S'-'O 2 , S 3 4 ). Under a similar relation, 

 Berthelot brings with reason the allotropic states of selenium and phospho- 

 rus, which have, as is known, each a state soluble and insoluble in sul- 

 phuret of carbon. The two conditions of oxygen, ozone and ordinary oxy- 

 gen, are to be considered as dependent on different electrical states, the 

 ozone electro-negative, and ordinary oxygen electro-positive. 



Now that the true principle has been indicated, it will be easy to find anal- 

 ogous facts, for it is one that will prove to be fertile in its applications. 

 Silliman's Journal. 



SULPHURIUM. 



Mr. Joseph Jones, of England, announces that he has discovered the per- 

 fect metal sulphurium, which is of the same class as arscnium, silver, 

 aluminum, c. Oxide of sulphurium is the refuse of the manufacture of 

 sulphuric acid, or brimstone, and has no commercial value, persons being 

 paid for carting it away. In its refuse condition it has almost the specific 

 gravity of iron, and the atoms are very fine,, malleable, ductile, &c. 



CRYSTALLINE FORM OF SELENIUM. IODINE AND PHOSPHORUS. 



Mitscherlich finds that the form of selenium crystallized from bisulphide 

 of carbon is an oblique rhombic prism. At 1 1G dcg. F., bisulphide of carbon 

 dissolves - 1 per cent, of selenium, and at 52 deg. F., it dissolves O'OIG. The 

 selenium separates, on cooling the solution, as thin transparent red laminae 



