CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 191 



ments of them be suspended in the head of a vessel in which the 

 hydrocarbon is boiling, the vapor, as it condenses on their surfaces, 

 softens and dissolves them, and trickles back into the vessel below, in 

 which a colorless varnish will result, more or less concentrated ac- 

 cording to the duration of the process. Benzole dissolves quinine, 

 depositing it on evaporation in a crystalline form ; the condensing va- 

 por dissolves the alkaloid, especially if not recently precipitated, more 

 readily than the boiling liquid. It dissolves iodine, phosphorus, and 

 sulphur ; and, when boiling, takes up the latter in large quantity, of 

 which, however, the greater part crystallizes out as the fluid cools. 

 It has been found extremely useful in the laboratory as a solvent in 

 researches in organic chemistry, where the high price and almost too 

 great volatility of either render a substitute for that agent a great 

 desideratum. The facility with which the vapor of benzole is taken 

 up and retained by the air at its ordinary temperatures, has been taken 

 advantage of in an apparatus for illumination, with great success; 

 in this a stream of it is made to pass through a reservoir of the volatile 

 hydrocarbon, and afterwards conducted to. burners, at which, being 

 ignited like coal-gas, it yields a light of extreme brilliancy and white- 

 ness. The property possessed by alcohol, of burning with an almost 

 lightless flame, so opposite to that of the highly carbonized benzole, 

 renders it easy, by properly adjusting a mixture of the volatile oil with 

 the spirit, to obtain a fluid which shall be readily vaporized and shall 

 yield a flame of any required degree of whiteness. Thus, a mixture 

 of one part by measure of benzole, and two parts of spirit of specific 

 gravity about 0.840, forms an excellent fuel for a portable gas-lamp, 

 which supplies itself with vapor by the heat which it generates in 

 combustion. Any excess of spirit diminishes the luminosity of the 

 flame, while too much of the benzole causes a tendency to smoke. 

 Chemical Gazette. 



NEW MODE OF ILLUMINATION. 



AT the meeting of the Institution of Civil Engineers in London, 

 on April 17, Mr. C. B. Mansfield read a paper "On an Application of 

 certain Liquid Hydro-carbons to Artificial Illumination." The system 

 proposed consists in conducting a stream of almost any gas, or even of 

 atmospheric air, through a reservoir charged with benzole or some other 

 equally volatile hydro-carbon ; the gas or air being then conducted like 

 common gas to the burners. It was stated that this system is applica- 

 ble on any scale, from the dimensions of town gas-works to the compass 

 of a table-lamp. In an apparatus exhibited, a small gas-holder, filled 

 by a pair of bellows, supplied common air through pipes. The gases 

 formed by passing steam over red-hot coke would answer well for 

 this purpose, and it would depend on local circumstances whether this 

 mode of generating the current would be preferable to the expendi- 

 ture of the mechanical force necessary for driving atmospheric air 

 through the pipes. By decomposing water with the voltaic battery, 

 naphthalizing the hydrogen with benzole, and burning it with the aid 



