76 Intelligence and Miscella?icous Articles. 



alternately with the base an acute angle of 79° 30', and an obtuse 

 supplementary angle. This substance cleaves readily into very small 

 laminae perpendicular to the axis ; when these are not too thick they 

 may be broken in the direction, of the three sides of an equilateral 

 triangle, parallel to three faces of the rhomboid. 



The hardness on the bases rather exceeds that of gypsum, and on 

 the faces of the rhomboid it is nearly equal to that of carbonate of 

 lime ; the thin laminae are very ductile, but not elastic ; the powder, 

 which is light greenish-white, is greasy to the feel. 



The specific gravity varies from 2'653 to 2*659 ; this difference 

 appears to be owing to the presence, in some of the crystals, of oc- 

 tahedral iron. 



When heated to redness in a tube, water is obtained ; it splits into 

 leaves before the blowpipe, becomes white and fuses with difficulty 

 into a gray enamel. It dissolves in the salt of phosphorus, or leaves a 

 skeleton of silica ; the glass, coloured by the iron while hot, becomes 

 opaline on cooling. With soda on a strip of platina a slight yellow 

 colour is produced. 



When in fine powder it is perfectly acted upon by long boiling in 

 hydrochloric acid. 



Two very pure crystals from the valley of Zermatt in the Valais, 

 and a third in foliated crystalline masses from the valley of Binnen 

 (Valais), gave by analysis the following results : — 



I. II. III. 



Silica 33-36 33-40 3395 



Alumina 13-24 13-41 13*46 



Oxide of chromium .. 0-20 0-15 0-24 



Peroxide of iron 5*93 5-73 6-12 



Magnesia 34-21 34*57 33-71 



Water 12-80 1274 12-52 



99-74 100^ 100^ 



Pennine is found in amianthiform chloritic slate, in the serpen- 

 tine rocks near Monte Rosa. It was first observed in crystals ha- 

 ving the appearance of long triangular prisms, which are merely ill- 

 formed rhomboids, in a grayish-white schist in the valley of Binnen; 

 it is the mineral which M, Necker in his Traits de Miner alogie calls 

 hydrotalc. — Ann. de Ch. et de Phys., Avril 1844. 



ON THE PREPAHATION AND PROPERTIES OF CERTAIN CHLO- 

 RATES. BY M. ALEXANDER WAECHTER. 



Chlorate of Lithia. — This compound was prepared by dissolving 

 carbonate of lithia in solution of chloric acid. The neutral liquor 

 was evaporated over sulphuric acid ; it yielded no crystals of deter- 

 minate form, but became a radiating crystalline mass. It was pressed 

 between folds of blotting- paper, and then perfectly dried over sul- 

 phuric acid. 



The chlorate of lithia thus procured is a white, deliquescent saline 

 mass, which is very soluble in alcohol; it fuses at 122° Fahr., and 

 begins to lose water, oxygen and a little chlorine at 284° ; when 

 heated till gas ceases to be evolved, there remains chloride of lithium 



