474 Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles, 



estimate, but it has been immense, and the coming season it will 

 doubtless be greater. New and rich deposits are developing every 

 day. Accounts from various points in the mining district, represent 

 the gold as very abundant, more so if possible than last year — indi- 

 viduals even early in the season obtaining often from three to ten 

 or even twenty ounces a day. The diggings on the several forks 

 of the Rio de los Americanos, the Stanislaus, the Tuwalumnes, the 

 Merced, the Mariposa, King's river (Lake Fork on Fremont's new 

 map), and in many, other places, are represented as peculiarly rich. 



There was one specimen of gold mingled with quartz, found near 

 Stanislaus last autumn, which I had resolved to procure, if possible, 

 for the cabinet of Yale. It was irregular in form, about four inches 

 in diameter, and weighed 5^ pounds avoirdupois. The metal was 

 interspersed in irregular masses through the stone, and as near as I 

 could judge without special investigation, was equivalent to about 

 two pounds troy, perhaps a little more. Other specimens much 

 larger are said to have been found, and one of twenty pounds 

 weight pure, near the Stanislaus ; but these I have not seen. — Silli- 

 man's Journal, November 1849. 



COMBINATIONS OF OIL OF TURPENTINE AND WATER. 

 BY M. H. DEVILLE. 



Oil of turpentine and some isomeric compounds have the property 

 of combining with water, to form substances which well deserve the 

 name of hydrates, on account of the facility with which this water 

 may be separated from them. But some singular reactions which 

 occur entitle them to be regarded as compounds of a very peculiar 

 order, and which are without analogy in the history of products 

 of the same kind. 



These bodies lose a part of their combined water by the action 

 of heat or exposure to a dry vacuum, and they regain it by exposure 

 to a moist atmosphere. 



The action of reagents seems to indicate, at least with oil of tur- 

 pentine, that the hydrate does not contain the primitive oil in 

 combination. The compound of camphor, obtained by means of hy- 

 drate of turpentine and hydrochloric acid, is a proof of this. It will 

 also be seen, that this property has allowed of the conversion of oil of 

 turpentine into oil of lemons, or at any rate into a substance which 

 has all its chemical properties and characteristic odour. 



It has long been known that the oils of turpentine and lemon 

 sometimes deposit crystals which, as regards composition, differ from 

 the oil only by the presence of six equivalents of water. These are 

 the results to which the only good analyses that have been per- 

 formed, lead. They are those of MM. Dumas and Peligot, who, in 

 point of fact, found the formula of the crystalline bodies of oil of 

 turpentine and cardamom; &c. to be C^o H^^ 0"= 0^° H'^ H*' 0". 



Some years since M. Wiggers obsei'ved that in certain veterinary 

 medicines formed of a mixture of alcohol, nitric acid, and oil of tur- 

 pentine, there was deposited a considerable quantity of a crystallized 



