Scientific Newi, Accounts of Books^ &c, 525 



juftly been entertained of introducing this yaluable tree into the weftern colonies, and even 

 into Europe, will give additional intereft to this account of the new application of the 

 bread fruit ^t Surinam. 



Bulle'tptt de la Societe Philom. No. 44J Art. 9- 



ExtraB from a Memoir of Cit. Thenard, on the fever al Degrees of Oxigenatkn of the Oxide of 

 Antimony, and on its Comhinations with fulphurated Hydrogen. 



Cit. Thenard divides his memoir into four paragraphs. 



In the firft he relates the principal experiments that have been made fince GeofFroy to 

 the prefent time. 



In the fecond he treats of the feveral oxides of antimony, and fhews that this metal is 

 capable of being combined at lead in fix different proportions with oxygen ; that when 

 oxided to the minimum, it is firft black, then chefnut brown, orange, yellow, and white I 

 and at the maximum alfo white ; — that diaphoretic antimony is a combination of this laft with 

 pot-afti, and not a pure oxide, as has hitherto been imagined : that the fecond, white oxide 

 which is leaft oxided, comprehends the fublimed oxide of antimony, that which enters witlj 

 the compofition of the emetic tartar, and alfo of the butter of antimony, which, con- 

 fequently, ought to be erafed from the lift of oxigenated muriates, where it is placed ; 

 that all thefe oxides, when heated in a well clofed crucible, are reduced, and the more 

 eafily the lefs they are oxided ; and thus produce the oxides of a yellow, orange, and 

 chefnu* brown, and the black oxide, which is alfo obtained with more facility by preci- 

 pitating I je folutions of antimony by iron, and pofleffes the remarkable property of being 

 pyrophoric. 



In the third part, the author gives the analyfis of kermes and the golden fulphur, and 

 fhews that the alterations to which thefe bodies are fubjeft from the aftioh of air and light are 

 owing to the decompofition of thefe fluids : that in the kermes the oxide is in the ftate of 

 the brown oxide, and in the golden fulphur in the ftate of the orange oxide ; that the caufe 

 of different colours of the kermes, which are obtained, arifes from the different coloured 

 oxides which thefe kermes refpe£lively contain. He afterwards gives analyfes of the ful- 

 phuric acid, the fulphate of barytcs, and of fulphurated hydrogen, together with the fpecific 

 gravity of this laft, and then proceeds to Ihew the a£tion of the alkaline bafes on the 

 fulphuret of antimony, and (hews that the kermes is held in folution by the fulphurated 

 hydro-fulphuret of the bafe, formed by the decompofition of water ; that accordingly aS 

 this fulphurated hydro-fulphuret has, or has not, the property of being more foluble with 

 heat than without, the depofition by cooling is found to take place on the contrary ; and, 



laftly, 



