608 Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 



by fermentation combines with the oxygen gas, in the proportion ot 

 the elements of water. The demonstration requires that the oxy- 

 gen shall be employed only to form this water, and all the carbonic 

 acid produced in the operation. 



The fermentable substances mentioned in the memoir do not 

 effect the combination of the oxygen and hydrogen gases before 

 they ferment, nor when the fermentation is stopped by an antiseptic. 

 Soils and humus, mixed with different earths, undergo a slow fer- 

 mentation as soon as they are moistened, which gives them the 

 power of destroying the mixture of oxygen and hydrogen gases. 



Gaseous oxide of carbon, carburetted hydrogen gases, hydrogen 

 gas obtained by decomposing water with red hot iron, were not de- 

 stroyed by fermentation when they were substituted for common 

 hydrogen gas, in the explosive mixture formed of two volumes of 

 hydrogen gas and one volume of oxygen gas. Azotic, hydrogen and 

 oxygen gases, added to the explosive mixture, do not present any 

 remarkable obstacle to the destruction of an explosive mixture by a 

 fermenting body, nor to that which is effected under the same cir- 

 cumstances by a plate of platina recently cleaned. 



Oxide of carbon and oleliant gas and others, which prevent the 

 combination of oxygen and hydrogen by platina, are also great 

 obstacles to the same result by fermentation. 



Nitrous oxide, added to the explosive mixture, was partly decom- 

 posed by fermentation, and did not prevent the combination of the 

 hydrogen and oxygen gases. — Bihl. Univ, Feb. 1838. 



ACTION OF SULPHATE OF AMMONIA UPON GLASS. 



A mixture of muriate and nitrate of ammonia strongly corrodes 

 glass, particularly glass containing lead. Sulphate of ammonia has 

 precisely a similar action. As this salt upon being heated parts 

 ■vsdth a portion of its base, it may be considered as a salt with excess 

 of acid. When heated in a glass vessel to the temperature of 316° 

 Fahrenheit, it begins to melt : up to 600'' Fahrenheit it does not 

 suffer any further changes ; at this temperature ammonia is driven 

 off, sulphate and sulphite of ammonia sublime and the glass vessel 

 is much corroded. The whole inner surface of the glass becomes 

 dim, while the sulphuric acid combines with the potash, and probably 

 the ammonia as it is driven off combines with the silicic acid. The 

 glass generally flies to pieces and in the centre is much acted upon ; 

 the fragments are fused with difficulty, and are recognised by the 

 blowpipe as sulphate of potash. 



I have often further remarked that the watch-glasses (containing 

 lead) which I am in the habit of using, to dry substances in vacuo 

 over sulphuric acid, after from two to four weeks become covered 

 with numerous flaws, and small splinters may be easily separated 

 from them. I have not been able to detect any loss of weight, there- 

 fore the appearance cannot be due to the abstraction of any air con- 

 tained in the glass, as Bischof, who observed something similar, sur- 

 mises. I have never observed the same action to take place upon 

 the glass of the air-pump or upon other glass. R. F.Manhand. — 

 Poggendorff's Annalen, 1837, No. 12. 



