D. CHEMISTRY AND METALLURGY. 205 



D. CHEMISTRY AND METALLURGY. 



VANADIUM IN KOCKS. 



Vanadium, hitherto regarded as one of the rarest metals, 

 is now said by Dr. A. A. Hayes to be very widely diffused. 

 It occurs as vanadic acid, associated with phosphoric acid, in 

 minute traces in very many of our commonest rocks. In 

 fact, it seems to be almost as frequently met with as man- 

 ganese. Dr. Hayes has detected it in green and plum color- 

 ed slates and porphyries, in sandstones, and in various rock 

 aggregates. 1 A, April 16, 1875, 166. 



CRYSTALLIZED CADMIUM. 



Hermann Kammerer has obtained fine crystals of metallic 

 cadmium by distilling the metal in a current of hydrogen in 

 a combustion tube. These crystals were silver white, and 

 seemed to belong to the regular system, there being regular 

 octahedrons, dodecahedrons, and other more complicated 

 forms. The experiment can be performed in the lecture- 

 room before a class. 21 A, May, 425. 



OXIDATION OF RUTHENIUM. 



Ruthenium, the rarest metal of the platinum group, differs 

 from its associates in the ease with which it undergoes ox- 

 idation. Its properties in this respect have recently been 

 investigated by Deville and Debray, who worked chiefly 

 with the tetroxide, Ru0 4 . This substance is easily formed 

 by the fusion of ruthenium before the oxyhydrogcn blow- 

 pipe. The metal then oxidizes almost as readily as anti- 

 mony, giving off a blackish vapor which smells strongly of 

 ozone. Strangely enough, however, the oxide, although form- 

 ed at such a high temperature, can not be heated without 

 decomposition. By simply heating a specimen of it to about 

 108 Centigrade, it can be made to decompose with a very 

 violent explosion, yielding a large quantity of highly ozo- 

 nized oxygen. These peculiarities seem to distinguish it from 

 all other known oxides. Annates de Chimie et cle Physique, 

 April, 537. 



