CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 211 



would, moreover, avoid all the disadvantages attending the production 

 of the vapors of muriatic acid. 



FLEXIBLE IVORY. 



M. CHARRIERE, a manufacturer of surgical instruments in Paris, 

 has for some time been in the habit of rendering flexible the ivory 

 which he uses in making tubes, probes, and other instruments. He 

 avails himself of a fact which has long been known, that when bones 

 are subjected to the action of hydrochloric acid, the phosphate of lime, 

 which forms one of their component parts, is extracted, and thus 

 bones retain their ' original form, and acquire great flexibility. M. 

 Charriere, after giving to the pieces of ivory the required form and 

 polish, steeps them in acid alone, or in acid partially diluted with 

 water, and they thus become supple, flexible, elastic, and of a slightly 

 yellowish color. In the course of drying, the ivory becomes hard and 

 inflexible again, but its flexibility can be at once restored by wetting 

 it, either by surrounding it with a piece of wet linen, or by placing 

 sponge in the cavities of the pieces. Some pieces of ivory have been 

 kept in a flexible state, in the acidulated water, for a week, and they 

 were neither changed, nor injured, nor too much softened, nor had they 

 acquired any taste or disagreeable smell. London Patent Journal. 



ANNIHILATION OF THE SMELL OF MUSK BY ERGOT OF RYE. 



years ago, the emulsion of bitter almonds was found to pos- 

 sess the property of annihilating the smell of musk, and most of the 

 cyanic preparations evinced the same power. According to M. Mer- 

 tot, a druggist of Bayeux, in Normandy, ergot of rye will produce 

 the same effect. " I had," said he, " to prepare a number of pills, 

 containing both musk and ergot, hardly were the two substances 

 mixed, than the smell completely went off, so much so, that the pa- 

 tient, who was not aware of the nature of the pills, only noticed the 

 musk by the effects of flatulency." Journal de Chimie Medicale, 



MODE OF COLORING STONES ARTIFICIALLY. 



THE ancients valued gems and parti-colored stones so highly, that it 

 finally became very common to produce by artificial means copies of 

 genuine stones, or to enhance the beauty of the latter. Among the 

 various processes employed by the ancients for the coloring of these 

 gems is one described by Pliny, which up to the present time has 

 been generally, although, erroneously, treated as a fable ; this process 

 consisted in boiling the stones with honey, during at least seven or 

 eight days, and it is a curious fact, that this identical process is still 

 employed in the agate manufactories of Oberstein and Idar, for the 

 purpose of converting chalcedonies and red and yellow cornelian into 

 fine onyx. This process was for many years known only to an agate 

 merchant of Idar, who had probably purchased it from some Italian 

 artist. The coloring of these stones is founded on the following prop- 



