D. CHEMISTRY AND METALLURGY. 223 



author proposes a new theory to account for the action of 

 chloral hydrate in the animal economy. When taken into 

 the body, it is not only submitted to the alkaline serum, but 

 to oxidizing: agencies at the same time. Both these causes 

 taken together effect its decomposition in the manner above 

 described, carbonous oxide being set free in the blood, dis- 

 placing its oxygen and producing symptoms analogous to 

 those observed in cases of poisoning by this oxide of carbon. 

 Moreover, the lowering of the temperature of the body, which 

 is observed in these cases, and the prolonged action observed 

 with chloral hydrate, combine to render this hypothesis 

 more tenable than the old one. Fatal poisoning by chloral 

 hydrate is not at all an impossible thing, therefore, if these 

 facts be true. 6 B, LXXLX., 662. 



GALLIUM, A SUPPOSED NEW CHEMICAL ELEMENT. 



Lecoq de Boisbaudran announced to the French Academy, 

 on the 27th of August, that he had discovered a new chem- 

 ical element in a blende from the Pierrefitte Mine, valley of 

 Argeles, Pyrenees. Its chemical reactions resemble those of 

 zinc, but it differs from this metal in being precipitated as 

 oxide by zinc, and also by the following facts : That its 

 chloride is precipitated by ammonia; that its oxide is soluble 

 in an excess of ammonia ; that its sulphide is precipitated by 

 ammonium sulphhydrate, and is insoluble in excess of the 

 precipitant; that this sulphide is thrown down in presence 

 of acetic though not of hydrochloric acid; that barium car- 

 bonate precipitates it even in the cold ; that the chloride is not 

 volatile ; and that when the solution containing zinc is heated 

 up to the point of production of oxychloride, all of the new 

 substance remains insoluble. In a subsequent paper pre- 

 sented to the Academy a month later, the author proposes 

 the name Gallium for the new metal, and gives more com- 

 plete statements of its spectroscopic characters. In concen- 

 trated solution, it gives with the electric spark a spectrum 

 containing two prominent lines. One of these is a moderate- 

 ly bright violet line of wave-length 417. The other is fainter, 

 and has a wave-length of 404. The chloride o-ives the line 

 417 in the ordinary gas flame. 6 i?, LXXXI., 493, Sept., 

 1875. 



