272 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



coke fire, side by side with ordinary rifle-powder, they explode a few seconds 

 before the latter, showing that a lower temperature is sufficient for the pur- 

 pose; but the difference is so slight as to lead to no practical result. The 

 compressed charge is not easily affected by damp, and may be fired imme- 

 diately after having been rapidly passed through water. 



We are informed that the process to which the powder is submitted is 

 very inexpensive, and, as soon as arrangements are made for its preparation 

 and sale, it will be brought into the market at a price very little above that 

 of ordinary gunpowder. If so, it will be a great boon to the rifleman, 

 whether he loads his piece at the muzzle or the breech. In the former case, 

 the solid cylinder will be rammed down entire, with very little adhesion of 

 the grains to the sides of the barrel, and consequent injury to its explosive 

 power. It is, however, in the breech-loader that the advantage will be chiefly 

 felt, as, in all cases where the cartridge can be readily introduced, this com- 

 pressed powder may be used without any covering whatever. Thus the 

 skin and gossamer cartridges, as well as the paper envelops now adopted, 

 will be entirely superseded, and miss-fires with breech-loaders will be still 

 more rare than with the muzzle-loader. We hear that Mr. Whitworth, after 

 a severe trial of the merits of the invention, has taken out a license to work 

 it; and, so far as our experiments have gone, we are led to anticipate that 

 it will be of the greatest use to his rifles, as well as to his large guns. Indeed, 

 unless some disadvantage attends its employment which we have not dis- 

 covered, we expect it will almost entirely supersede the ordinary powder. 

 The Field- Sporting Journal, London. 



SUGAR A REMEDY FOR DRUNKENNESS. 



Dr. Lecceur, of Caen, says that he has found in white sugar as efficacious 

 a remedy for drunkenness as ammonia. No rationale has as yet been 

 adduced for the action of so simple a substance as sugar, except that it 

 serves to bring on a different fermentation than the existing one in the 

 stomach, and to neutralize, by the formation of new compounds, the action 

 of the liquors. 



DISTRIBUTION OF IODINE. 



Chatin, the well-known French chemist, insists that there is iodine in the 

 atmosphere. He has found it in the rain-water of Florence, Pisa, and 

 Lucca, as well as at Paris. Further, he adds that he has found it in five 

 samples of distilled water, and three specimens of potassium from the best 

 laboratories, and he believes that it may be found in all potassiums and 

 most rain-waters. M. Chatin cannot succeed in isolating the iodine, but he 

 feels none the less certain of its presence. . 



ON THE ATOMIC WEIGHT OF THE SIMPLE SUBSTANCES. 



In a paper recently submitted to the Koyal Academy of Belgium, by 

 Professor Stass, on the atomic or molecular weight of the simple substances, 

 a position is taken in regard to the subject greatly at variance with the views 

 generally entertained by chemists. The author states that Berzelius, after 

 devoting a great part of his life to endeavoring to determine chemical pro- 

 portions, or equivalents, concluded from his researches that there does not 

 exist any simple relation between the weight of the atoms of bodies, and 



