402 Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles, 



•6 



which is, to propose that we drink the health of our friend Dr. Babing- 

 ton. Let me observe, that in proposing his health as Chairman of 

 this Meeting, \ou will do him very feeble praise if you regard merely 

 the situation in which he now appears. Dr. Babington has been the 

 friend, the bosom friend of those philosophers whose memory we have 

 now commemorated. It is more than half a century since Dr. Babing- 

 ton ceased to lecture as a chemist. He was the first person in this 

 country who excited anything like a love for mineralogy. He pur- 

 chased a large collection of minerals, and published the first s} r ste- 

 matic catalogue that ever appeared in this country. It was in his 

 house that the meetings of those gentlemen who afterwards formed 

 the Geological Society took place. Dr. Babington has been the in- 

 timate friend of all those gentlemen whose memories we respect as 

 scientific men : and if there be any truth • in the observation that 

 those asperities, those " animis ccelestibus irce," which are too often 

 generated in the breasts of contemporary philosophers, be assuaged 

 and softened down by intercourse with gentler spirits, I ask those 

 gentlemen, who from experience are well able to judge, where these 

 philosophers could have found another person like Dr. Babington for 

 their associate ? where could they have found a kinder or a more faith- 

 ful Atticus ? I have thought it necessary to say thus much in propo- 

 sing his health ; had he been absent, I should have said more. 



The health of the President being drunk accordingly, that gentle- 

 man then terminated the proceedings of " the Commemoration of the 

 Centenary of the Birth of Priestley, as the Founder of Pneumatic 

 Chemistry," by the following expression of his thanks : 



Gentlemen, I feel myself quite unable to offer anything in the 

 way of return for the very handsome manner in which Dr. Paris has 

 thought fit to express himself; I therefore content myself with offer- 

 ing you my best acknowledgments on the present occasion. I hope 

 you will recollect what I said at the beginning, that I have not filled 

 this situation in conformity either with my inclination or my judge- 

 ment. I beg you will have the kindness to receive my warmest 

 thanks for your assistance this evening. I am glad to perceive the 

 feeling that has animated the Meeting, and that we have been so 

 much gratified with what we have heard. 



LXVI. Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 



EXPERIMENTS ON MINIUM. BY M. DUMAS. 



M DUMAS submitted massicot to 24 hours heat in a reverberatory 

 • furnace, by which it acquired 1*17 per cent, of oxygen ; after a 

 second exposure to heat for the same length of time, the oxygen added 

 amounted to 1*22 per cent.; and after a third operation the addition 

 was I -36. The colour of these miniums was as fine as that of those 

 obtained by a much longer exposure to heat. By exposure to 24 

 hours longer heat, the amount of oxygen gained was 1*5 per cent., 

 by a fifth 1*55, and after eight days heating, the total amount acquired 

 during the conversion of the massicot into minium was 175 per cent. 

 M. Dumas remarks that the extreme slowness with which massicot 



