180 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



in the Dead Sea is due to mineral springs which formerly ex- 

 isted in great numbers in and adjoining its basin, and are still 

 present to a small extent. 2 C, August, 1872, 170. 



OCCURKENCE OF GOLD IN SEA-WATER. 



Sonstadt, in an article upon the presence of gold in sea- 

 water, communicated to the Chemical JVews, remarks that 

 the amount is less than one grain to the ton, and that the 

 proportion is too small to permit the separation or even de- 

 tection by the ordinary tests. He therefore proceeds to give 

 the various methods by which the presence of the metal was 

 determined by him. 1 A, October 4, 1872, 160. 



REDUCING POWER OF NASCENT HYDROGEN. 



Active reducing properties are generally attributed to hy- 

 drogen liberated from palladium, which may have absorbed 

 it as the negative pole of an electrical circuit. Graham cites, 

 as remarkable evidences of this, the conversion of ferri-cyanide 

 of potassium into ferro-cyanide, and of sesqui-salts of iron 

 into proto-salts. Professor Bottger states, however, as the 

 result of his investigations, that palladium and some other 

 metals, as thallium, magnesium, and arsenic, possess of them- 

 selves such power, without previous absorption of hydrogen, 

 when placed in solutions of certain salts, especially of ferri- 

 cyanide of potassium and of sesqui-chloride of iron. He 

 suggests, as an experiment corroborative of the above, the 

 placing of a clean piece of palladium foil in one half per cent, 

 solution of ferri-cyanide of potassium, and after the lapse of 

 ten minutes testing the solution with a sesqui-salt of iron for 

 ferro-cyanide. 15 C, xviii., 273. 



FICHTELITE. 



Professor Mallet, of the University of Virginia, has lately 

 examined certain colorless crystalline crusts found in the 

 cracks between the annual rings of growth of a log of long- 

 leafed pine {Piniis cmstralis), and has come to the conclusion 

 that in all respects they are identical with the Ficlitelite, a 

 hydrocarbon hitherto only known in a fossil state. 21 A, 

 December, 1872, 1083. 



