326 Intelligence and Miscellaneotis Articles, 



and the surface of the iron rod always remains clean, so that the 

 current remains constant. A heat sufficient for the fusion of the 

 copper must be avoided. The current has a certain intensity long 

 before the fusion of the glass. 



3. A tube of green glass, enclosing a cylinder of copper, is put 

 into a pistol barrel and all the interstices filled up with pounded 

 glass ; the whole is then placed horizontally in a proper furnace, and 

 the pistol barrel and cylinder of copper connected with the other 

 apparatus by means of wires of the same metals. This arrangement 

 has given me the best results. 



Sijcth experiment. — In the pyro-electric couples just described, 

 copper has been employed as the electro-negative element; but 

 platinum and coke may also be used, although both of them present 

 certain disadvantages. The platinum is attacked by the glass and 

 disintegrated ; the coke burns very slowly and produces a current 

 in the opposite direction, which diminishes the action of the current 

 resulting from the oxidation of the iron. It is possible, I think, to 

 get rid of this inconvenience by introducing a cylinder of coke into 

 an earthen tube and closing the openings with earth to prevent the 

 circulation of air. 



Observations. — Glass is not the only vitreous substance which may 

 be employed; amongst those tried by me, I will mention borax, 

 which, however, I gave up because it attacks the elements of the 

 couple too rapidly. Common salt and nitrate of potash give but 

 feeble actions, unless the latter salt be employed with coke, — a couple 

 which gives a very powerful disengagement of electricity at the 

 moment of deflagration of the coke ; but from its rapid action and 

 the danger attending it, this couple cannot be made use of. 



Sand and pure quartz, whatever temperature they may be exposed 

 to, never acquire the conductive power, and cannot be substituted 

 for glass or the alkaline silicates. 



The facts described in this note, show that the lost heat of factories 

 may be employed to set in action pyro-electric couples, producing 

 currents which partake of the nature of hydro -electric and thermo- 

 electric currents. They also render it probable that terrestrial- 

 electric currents exist, at the point of contact of the solid part of 

 the globe with the fused portion, where solid conducting substances 

 are partially imbedded in fused silicates, in the same way as in pyro- 

 electric couples. — Comptes Rendus, May 22, 1854, p. 902. 



ON HYDROCYANALDINE. BY A. STRECKER. 



Some years ago I found that a mixture of aldehydate of ammonia 

 and hydrocyanic acid, with an excess of muriatic acid, when evapo- 

 rated on the water-bath, gives a residue of muriate of ammonia and 

 muriate of alanine, — 



C*H*0«NH3-f2HCl4-C2NH-|-2HO=C6H7NO*.HCl+NH*Cl. 

 Aldehydate of Muriate of alanine, 



ammonia. 

 The reaction is quite different when the same mixture is not 

 heated. In this case colourless crystals are formed in the fluid in 

 the course of a few days, and these increase by degrees. It is to 



