254' IntelUgeTice and Miscellaneous Articles. 



Btals lose their water, become of a dull white, fuse into a colourless 

 liquid, and evaporate without carbonizing. If this experiment be 

 made in a glass tube, the vapour condenses in a crystalline state in 

 the cooler part of the tube. A slip of moistened litmus paper, 

 placed in the tube during sublimation, is strongly reddened. The 

 property of subliming is the only one which this new acid has in 

 common with that which MM. Pelletier and Caventou found in 

 the seeds of cevadilla, and which ought not therefore to be con- 

 founded with the acid which I have discovered. 

 Professor Schrotter's analysis of this acid gives 



Hydrogen 5*49 



Carbon 59-95 



Oxygen 34-56 lOO" 



The atomic weight of this acid (anhydrous) is 2184-2, and that 

 of the crystalUzed acid 2296-7 ; the formula of the first is H's C's Qt, 

 and that of the second Hi« C's O^ + H^^ O. 



Journal de Pharm., Mai 1839. 



GAUSS ON THE THEORY OF MAGNETISM. 



In our theory it is assumed that every determinate magnetized 

 particle of the earth contains precisely equal quantities of positive 

 and negative fluid. Supposing the magnetic fluids to have no real- 

 ity, but to be merely a fictitious substitute for galvanic currents in 

 the smallest particles of the earth, this equality is necessarily part 

 of the substitution ; but if we attribute to the magnetic fluids an 

 actual existence, there might without absurdity be a doubt as to the 

 perfect equality of the quantities of the two fluids. 



In regard to detached magnetic bodies (natural or artificial mag- 

 nets), the question as to whether they do or do not contain a sen- 

 sible excess of either magnetic fluid might easily be decided by very 

 exact and delicate experiments. 



In case of the existence of any such excess in a body of this na- 

 ture, a plumb-line to which it should be attached should deviate 

 from the true vertical position in the direction of the magnetic me- 

 ridian. 



If experiments of this kind, mfide with a great number of artificial 

 magnets and in a locality suflSciently distant from iron, never showed 

 the slightest deviation, (which we should rather expect,) the equal- 

 ity of the two fluids might with the highest degree of probability be 

 inferred for the whole earth ; though without wholly excluding the 

 possibility of some inequality. — Taylor's Scientific Memoirs, vol. ii. 

 (Part vi.) p, 228. 



The Provincial Meeting of the Geological Society of France 

 will this year be held at Boulogne, and will commence on the 8th of 

 September. 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS. 

 Just published. 

 Scientific Memoirs, translated from Foreign Transactions and 

 Journals: edited by Richard Taylor, F.L.S.— Part VI. 6 Plates, 



