78 Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 



elusion he remarks, " How rapidly the knowledge of molecular forces 

 grows upon us, and how strikingly every investigation tends to de- 

 velope more and more their importance and their extreme attraction 

 as an object of study ! A few years ago magnetism was to us an 

 occult power affecting only a few bodies ; now it is found to influ- 

 ence all bodies, and to possess the most intimate relations with elec- 

 tricity, heat, chemical action, light, crystallization, and, through it, 

 with the forces concerned in cohesion ; and we may, in the present 

 state of things, ■w^ell feel urged to continue in our labours, encouraged 

 by the hope of bringing it into a bond of union with gravity itself." 



IX. Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 



ON A NEW MODIFICATION OF PHOSPHORUS. 



MSCHROETTER has stated, that the red substance which 

 • forms on the surface of phosphorus exposed to the light, is 

 entirely an isomeric formation of phosphorus. It takes place in va- 

 rious gases, such as hydrogen, azote and carbonic acid, when the 

 phosphorus is perfectly dry ; it is therefore impossible to attribute this 

 effect to the oxidizement of the phosphorus. 



The transformation is rapid in direct light, but it is observable 

 even in diffused feeble light. Heat effects the same change. "When 

 phosphorus which has been thoroughly dried is exposed for forty or 

 sixty hours to a temperature of 464° to 482° F., a great part of it 

 becomes of a carmine-red. A red opake powder is first detached, 

 which is soon uniformly generated in every portion of the mass, and 

 it eventually falls to the bottom of the vessel. 



By operating on small quantities in close vessels, and by continuing 

 the action in the mode described, M. Schroetter has succeeded in 

 converting the whole of the phosphorus into the red modification. 



In order to isolate the amorphous phosphorus prepared in rather 

 large quantity, M. Schroetter employed sulphuret of carbon, which is 

 an excellent solvent of common phosphorus, but dissolves amorphous 

 phosphorus with difficulty ; filtration is performed with peculiar pre- 

 cautions ; the residue is afterwards boiled in a solution of potash of 

 rS density; it is then to be washed with pure water, afterwards 

 with water acidified with nitric acid, and again with pure water ; 

 the phosphorus thus obtained is a powder varying in colour from 

 scarlet to deep carmine-red. 



Under peculiar circumstances a blackish-brown modification of 

 phosphorus may be obtained. The density of amorphous phosphorus 

 at50°F. is 1-964. 



Amorphous phosphorus is unalterable by exposure to the air, in- 

 soluble in aether, alcohol, naphtha, or chloride of phosphorus ; oil of 

 turpentine dissolves a little at a high temperature ; it is much less 

 combustible than common phosphorus, it gives out no light in the 

 dark, and does not bum till exposed to 500° F. This is the tempe- 

 rature at which amorphous phosphorus begins to return to the state 

 of common phosphorus when heated in an inert gas. 



