156 Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 



metallic substance whatever. The hydrochloric acid was prepared 

 expressly for the purpose ; nitric acid only was sometimes employed ; 

 the filters were made of paper which was analysed and found to con- 

 tain no copper, and they were washed with concentrated nitric acid 

 diluted with an equal volume of distilled water. The capsules, cru- 

 cibles, glass rods, bottles, funnels and glasses, were washed with 

 aqua regia, with nitric acid, and in some cases with boiling nitric 

 acid. 



The blood employed in these experiments weighed 162 grs., 

 200 grs., 300 grs., 315 grs., 380 grs., 472 grs.; it was cautiously 

 evaporated to dryness in a porcelain capsule, and burnt in a porcelain 

 crucible ; the ash was treated with aqua regia or nitric acid ; the 

 solution was evaporated to get rid of the greater part of the acid, 

 then treated with water, filtered into a bottle, subjected to the action 

 of hydrosulphuric acid, and allowed to stand at least eighteen hours 

 that the precipitate might subside ; the liquid was filtered to separate 

 this : the filter after being washed with water containing a little 

 hydrosulphuric acid, in a small porcelain capsule, treated with a 

 few drops of aqua regia of nitric acid, allowed to stand, or slightly 

 heated till the colour of the precipitate was so modified as to possess 

 the colour of sulphur. The filter was washed, the liquid evaporated, 

 and the residue calcined and treated, after cooling, with two drops 

 of nitric acid ; it had all the properties of a solution of a salt of cop- 

 per, for ammonia rendered it blue, and the ferrocyanide of potassium 

 gave a reddish-brown precipitate, and lastly it deposited copper 

 on metallic iron. 



From the facts above detailed, the author considers that the exist- 

 ence of copper in the blood cannot be questioned ; and he is of opi- 

 nion, as stated in a memoir presented to the Academy in 1848, that 

 vegetables take from the soil part of the copper which they contain ; 

 that herbivorous animals receive it from plants, and man from plants 

 and animals which serve him for food. — Journ. de Ph. et de Ch., 

 Decembre 1848. 



FORMATION OF CARBONATE OF LIME FROM THE NEUTRAL 

 MALATE OF LIME. BY M. DESSAIGNES. 



The researches of M. Piria have proved that asparagine may be 

 regarded as the amide of malic acid. When it is impure and dis- 

 solved in water, it soon ferments, and is converted into succinate of 

 ammonia. It occurred to M. Dessaignes that if malic acid, or one 

 of its salts, was susceptible of undergoing the same kind of fermen- 

 tation, the relation discovered by M. Piria would receive from it a 

 more complete demonstration. 



Neutral malate of lime, such as obtained by M. Liebig's pro- 

 cess from the berries of the mountain ash, was exposed to a some- 

 what deep stratum of water, in a vessel covered merely with paper. 

 This was in the autumn of 1847 ; after three months, the superna- 

 tant water was partly filled with a mucilaginous and unquestionably 



