172 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



The result of the series of experiments so far as yet made pub 

 lie is thus summed up by Despretz in a communication to the French 

 Academy. 1. Charcoal in vacua is uniformly reduced to vapor at the 

 temperature which it acquires from a Bunsen's battery of 500 to GOO 

 elements, united in five or six series. In a gas it is slower, but it is 

 likewise accomplished. 2. Charcoal by a proportionate temperature 

 may be bent, fused, and welded. 3. Any kind of charcoal becomes 

 so much the harder as it is submitted for a longer time to a high tem- 

 perature. In fact, it is converted into graphite. 4. Pure graphite is 

 gradually dissipated by heat, like charcoal. That which remains is 

 graphite still. 5. Tli3 diamond is changed, by the heat of a suffi- 

 ciently powerful battery, into graphite, like every other kind of char- 

 coal. Like charcoal, it gives rise to small fused globules, when 

 heated for a very long time. G. If we compare the results of our ex- 

 periments with the production of graphite in the high furnaces, from 

 the hexahedral form of natural graphite, a form incompatible with 

 the regular octohedron, we are inclined to think thai the diamond is 

 not ilia product of the action of any intense heat upon organic or carbo- 

 naceous matters. Comptes Rcndus, June 18, et post. 



ON A PECULIAR FORM PRODUCED IN THE DIAMOND UNDER THE 

 INFLUENCE OF THE VOLTAIC ARC, 



MR. J. P. GASSIOT exhibited to the British Association, at its last 

 meeting, a diamond which had been exposed to the intense heat pro- 

 duced by the voltaic battery when arranged as in the device for the 

 electric light. The diamond had apparently been fused, but, instead 

 of changing into coke, as in such circumstances diamonds generally 

 do, it had become a glassy mass, and seemed to consist of a multitude 

 of small crystals adhering to each other. When the diamond is con- 

 verted by galvanic fusion into coke, it changes from a non-conductor 

 to a conductor ; in this case the diamond, though fused, still remained 

 a non-conductor. 



At the same meeting, Mr. H. C. Sorby read a paper on " the tri- 

 morphism of carbon," the object of which was to establish the fact 

 that coke was in reality crystallized when very hard, and in the same 

 form as the diamond, from which, however, it was stated to differ in 

 crystallographic volume. Mr. Sorby stated that he had also observed 

 anthracite coal in the form of crystals belonging to the square pris- 

 matic system. Jameson's Journal, Oct. 



THE NEW METAL, ARIDIUM. 



A PAPER by M. Ullgren has been recently communicated to the 

 Academy of Sciences at Stockholm, giving an account of a supposed 

 new metal occurring in the chrome-iron of Roros, and some other iron 

 ores. As the metal exhibits in its oxides great resemblance to iron, 

 it has been called Aridium. In some experiments made with a view 

 of detecting the presence of phosphorus in the bar-iron of the Oernsto- 

 los iron ores, the author found thai the solution of iron obtained be- 



