568 Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 



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Sulphuric acid diluted with twice its volume of water also effects 

 the metamorphosis of hippuric acid without the disengagement of 

 gas, and without colouring the solution. The benzoic acid obtained 

 is very easily purified, and also a compound, from which, by means 

 of chalk or carbonate of lead, sugar of gelatine may be procured. 



M. Dessaignes combined, equivalent to equivalent, sulphuric acid 

 SO 3 H 2 O, and the sugar obtained from hippuric acid, giving as the 

 formula of the latter C 4 H 10 N 3 O 4 ; and he obtained a solution which 

 crystallized in large prisms of great splendour, to the last drop. 



A very concentrated solution of oxalic acid boiled for two hours 

 with hippuric acid, converts it into benzoic acid and oxalate of sugar, 

 which crystallizes in fine prisms. Lastly, an excess of potash or 

 soda, boiled for half an hour with hippuric acid, converts it into al- 

 kaline benzoate and sugar, which was obtained in the form of hy- 

 drochlorate, after having treated the mixture of benzoate and sugar 

 with hydrochloric acid. — Ann. de Ch. et de Phys., Mai 1846. 



COMPARATIVE ANALYSES OF ORIENTAL JADE AND TREMOLITE. 

 BY M. DAMOUR. 



The jade selected for analysis had been worked in India ; it was 

 of a milk-white colour and semi-transparent, and had the appearance 

 of white wax, or perhaps rather of spermaceti. Its fracture is splin- 

 tery ; it scratches glass, but feebly. Its specific gravity was found 

 to be 2-970. Its tenacity is very great; when reduced to powder 

 and heated in a glass tube, its appearance was not altered, and it 

 yielded no water. In the flame of the blowpipe it swells up, and 

 fuses slowly into a milk-white enamel. Borax dissolves it without 

 colour; the salt of phosphorus dissolves it, leaving a skeleton of 

 silica. It is not sensibly acted upon by hydrochloric acid. 



Two analyses gave the following results : — 



Silica 58-46 58*02 



Lime 12-06 1T82 



Magnesia 27-09 27-19 



Protoxide of iron . . 1*15 1*12 



98-76 98-15 



M. Damour having observed that this is precisely the composition 

 of tremolite (white amphibole), submitted this substance to the same 

 process of analysis as that adopted with the jade. The specimen 

 which he selected was from St. Gothard, and in colourless crystals, 

 very perfect and associated with granular dolomite, which was sepa- 

 rated by hydrochloric acid previously to analysis. 

 It yielded, — 



Silica 58-07 



Lime 12-99 



Magnesia 24*46 



Protoxide of iron . . T82 

 9734 



