POPULAR MISCELLANY 



861 



burst forth in bunches, slowly uncoiling 

 themselves. They were white, stiff, and 

 wire-like, and not at all stained with blood. 

 The large blood-vessels of the lungs were 

 filled densely, and large filarial were with- 

 drawn with some difficulty even from the 

 small ones. The worms lived in water 

 about twenty-four hours. 



Production of Artificial Diamonds. 



Mr. Hannay lately gave an account to the 

 Royal Society of his experiments in pro- 

 ducing artificial diamonds. As far back as 

 the fall of 1879, he was searching for a 

 solvent of the alkali metals, and tried many 

 experiments with different liquids and gases, 

 with the invariable result that, when the sol- 

 vent reached the permanently gaseous state, 

 chemical action ensued. A number of ex- 

 periments were made with sodium, potas- 

 sium, and lithium, and the hydrocarbons, but 

 the metals almost invariably combined with 

 the hydrogen, setting the carbon free. A 

 series of experiments made with sodium and 

 paraffine-spirit gave a deposit of very hard 

 scales of carbon. This was the reaction upon 

 which the experiments for obtaining crys- 

 talline carbon were built. From his experi- 

 ments in solution, Mr. Hannay concluded 

 that the solvent power of water was deter- 

 mined by two conditions : first, temperature, 

 or molecular vis viva ; and, second, closeness 

 of the molecules on pressure, which seems to 

 give penetrative power. It should follow, 

 then, that, if one body has a solvent action 

 upon another without acting upon it chem- 

 ically, such solvent action may be indefinitely 

 increased by increasing the temperature and 

 pressure of the solvent. Out of more than 

 eighty experiments which Mr. Hannay made 

 for producing crystallized carbon, only 

 three were attended by results of a satisfac- 

 tory nature. The first experiments were 

 made with sodium and paraffine-spirit, in 

 tubes of hydraulic iron, twenty inches long, 

 an inch thick, and of a half-inch bore, 

 three parts filled. The tubes, fitted with 

 screwed plugs, nearly.all leaked, and had to 

 be welded up. Then one exploded before it 

 became visibly red, another showed a de- 

 posit of scaly carbon, and a third gave out 

 a strong jet of gas when opened, while the 

 iron appeared to have been converted to 

 steel. Concluding that diamonds were not 



likely to be obtained by that means, Mr. 

 Hannay returned to the idea of dissolving 

 carbon in a gaseous menstruum. A distilla- 

 tion from bone -oil containing nitrogenous 

 bases seemed to him the most likely sub- 

 stance to yield the solvent. It was placed 

 in a strong tube with charcoal, and heated 

 for fourteen hours. The gas rushed out 

 with force on opening the tube, and a few 

 bright particles of carbon appeared, differ- 

 ing but little, however, from particles of 

 wood-charcoal. Another experiment was 

 made with lithium and a mixture of highly 

 rectified bone-oil and paraffine-spirit, placed 

 in a tube twenty inches by four inches, with 

 a bore of half an inch. This was heated 

 for fourteen hours, then cooled slowly. On 

 opening it, after the outrush of gas a little 

 liquid was found, and at the upper end of 

 the tube as it lay in the furnace, a hard, 

 smooth mass, which was removed with a 

 chisel. Some hard particles were found in 

 pulverizing this mass, which, on examina- 

 tion, proved to be transparent crystals of 

 carbon, or diamonds. New experiments 

 were made with other alkali metals, paraf- 

 fine-spirit, and bone-oil, but they yielded 

 nothing except the scaly carbon. Even the 

 lithium did not act in the same manner as 

 before. This metal having, however, given 

 the best results, Mr. Hannay determined to 

 use it in his further experiments, but was 

 troubled by frequent disasters and explo- 

 sions, although he again got, in one of the 

 trials, a small quantity of carbon crystals. 

 A curious fact that has been brought out by 

 the examination of the crystallized carbon 

 that was obtained is that nitrogen was pres- 

 ent in chemical combination with the car- 

 bon. Mr. Hannay is inclined, therefore, to 

 believe that his diamonds were formed by 

 the decomposition of a nitrogenous body, 

 and not by the decomposition of the hydro- 

 carbon. The diamonds, moreover, were not 

 found when nitrogen was absent; but the 

 successful experiments are still too few, and 

 the evidence too vague, to justify drawing 

 any conclusions on this subject. 



The Nile and its Ancient Channels. 



M. Dclamotte, who has made himself well 

 acquainted with the geology and geography 

 of Egypt, has published the opinion that, 

 besides the Nile, that country was watered 



