76 Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 



contact, cold, with zinc and iron, occasions an abundant disengage- 

 ment of hydrogen gas, and the formation of protophosphovinate of 

 iron and of zinc. It expels carbonic acid from all carbonates. 



Neither sulphuric acid nor barytes water renders the solution of 

 phosphovinic acid turbid. 



In order to determine whether phosphovinic acid was produced in 

 as great quantity cold as hot, and how much is formed from a given 

 quantity of phosphoric acid, the following experiments were made 

 by M. Pelouze, suggested as he states by the excellent memoir of 

 Hennell on Sulphuric iEther. 



Ten grammes of very concentrated phosphoric acid were dissolved 

 in water, and ten other grammes in an equal quantity of alcohol, and 

 the mixture was set aside in a bath of ice for 24 hours. Lastly, 10 

 grammes of the same acid mixed with the same proportion of alcohol, 

 were boiled for some minutes. The quantities of phosphate of barytes 

 yielded by the three liquors, were as follows : 



1st 21-8 gr. 



2nd 150 



3rd 14-8 



These experiments prove that by the action of phosphoric acid upon 

 alcohol, about one fourth of it is converted into phosphovinic acid, 

 and that this conversion is not sensibly modified by boiling the mix- 

 ture. They also prove that the decomposition of phosphovinic acid is 

 much more difficult to effect, than that of sulphovinic acid. 



It is to this circumstance that must be attributed the small pro- 

 duction of aether, when phosphoric acid is made to act upon alcohol, 

 and not, as has been supposed, to the inertia of phosphoric acid with 

 respect to this liquid, since, even at the temperature of melting ice, the 

 contact of these bodies occasions the formation of a great quantity of 

 phosphovinic acid. — Ann. de Chim. et de Phys. lii. p. 37. 



NOTICE OF THE DISCOVERY OF COAL-MEASURES, AND OF FOS- 

 SIL FRUITS, AT BILLESDON COPLOW, IN LEICESTERSHIRE. 

 BY JOSEPH HOLDSWORTH, ESQ. 



It has always appeared to me that there are some very partially- 

 surveyed districts, south-east of the red marl, in all probability pos- 

 sessing features sufficiently indicative of mineral treasures to call 

 into action a just spirit of enterprise, and incite to trials of discovery 

 upon the most effective scale: but the reigning theory of the day 

 has hoisted the standard of prejudice over those unfortunate lands, 

 and by its doctrine of the prevailing and continuous dip — by its 

 " sweeping generalizations," — loaded the valuable fuel they may 

 contain with almost miles in thickness of superincumbent strata. 



As a lover of Nature, and duly impressed with the magnitude and 

 hazard of the undertaking I was about to engage in, (and which has 

 now been daily progressing more than two years,) for the discovery 

 of coal in this hitherto unexplored and condemned district; having 

 somewhat qualified myself for the task, by attentive perusals of 



