Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 237 



Experiment proves that nitrite of sethyle does not act like nitro- 

 naphtliaiine with bisulphite of ammonia ; nitrogen is evolved, and a 

 formation of sulphuric and aethylosulphuric acids takes place. 



IsEethionic acid, prepared according to M. Regnault, by means of 

 anhydrous sulphuric acid and defiant gas, when in combination with 

 ammonia only differs from taurine in composition by two equivs. of 

 water, — 



NH^O . C^H^O . 2S03=C^H7N06 S^ + HO. 

 Issethionate of ammonia. Taurine. 



This salt fuses at 248° F. without disengaging ammonia, and it 

 might be hoped that at a still higher temperature it would lose water. 

 I first ascertained that taurine might be heated to 464° F. without 

 decomposition or fusion. Issethionate of ammonia heated to 392° F. 

 began to lose weight ; I heated it to 446° F., and kept it at this tem- 

 perature until it had lost 1 1 per cent, of its weight. The mass was 

 dissolved in water ; on the addition of alcohol it is precipitated in 

 crystals ; this precipitate, dissolved in water, furnished by sponta- 

 neous evaporation large crystals exactly identical with the crystals 

 of taurine prepared from bile. Like taurine, they bear exposure 

 to a temperature of 464° F. without fusing or acquiring colour; 

 they evolve no ammonia with a solution of potash ; they do not pre- 

 cipitate the salts of baryta when boiled with nitric acid or nitro- 

 muriatic acid. When fused with potash and nitrate of potash, they 

 evolve ammonia, and the mass contains sulphuric acid. All these 

 properties being the same as those of taurine, and its mode of forma- 

 tion proving that its composition is similar, this product is identical 

 with the taurine of the bile. — Comptes Rendus, July 3, 1854, p. 61. 



ON THE ELECTRO- CHEMICAL DECOMPOSITION OF WATER. 

 BY F. LEBLANC. 



With the hope of obtaining a gas much charged with ozone by 

 the electrolysis of water, I arranged a voltameter so as to keep it in 

 action in a freezing mixture. In this way, water containing at least 

 one-tenth of its volume of concentrated sulphuric acid was decom* 

 posed at a low temperature by means of four ordinary Bunsen's ele- 

 ments. Although the electrodes were formed of simple platinum 

 wires, the volume of oxygen collected was much less than half the 

 volume of the hydrogen disengaged in the same time at the negative 

 pole. 



The oxygen was strongly ozonized, but the proportion of ozone 

 absorbable by spongy silver did not warrant the attribution of the 

 diminution in the volume of gas collected at the positive pole, to any 

 difference in volume between ozone and ordinary oxygen. 



I observed that the liquid in the voltameter had acquired new pro- 

 perties — energetic oxidizing action ; it whitened sulphuret of lead, 

 and superoxidized hydrated oxides like oxygenated water. 



I continued these researches, and ascertained the existence of some 

 peculiar phaenomena of oxidation, by employing spongy platinum at 

 the positive pole, and placing oxidizable substances in the cold vol- 



