Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles, 321 



which contains an exponential factor. The differential equation 

 which determines the density being linear, is satisfied by any sum of 

 tliese functions answering to any number of molecules. Whence it 

 follows that their atmospheres may overlay or penetrate each other 

 without disturbing the equilibrium of the aether. Proceeding in the 

 next place to the conditions of equilibrium of the molecules, I ob- 

 served that, for a first approximation (which may be sufficient in al- 

 most all cases), the reciprocal action of two molecules and of their 

 surrounding atmospheres is independent of the presence of the others, 

 and possesses all the characteristics of molecular action. At first it 

 is repulsive, and contains an exponential factor, which is capable of 

 making it decrease very rapidly : it vanishes soon after, and at this 

 distance two molecules will be as much indisposed to approach more 

 nearly as they would be to recede further from each other; so that 

 they would remain in a state of steady equilibrium. At a greater 

 distance the molecules would attract each other, and their attrac- 

 tion would increase with their distance up to a certain point, at which 

 it would attain a maximum : beyond this point it would diminish, and 

 at a sensible distance would decrease directly as the product of their 

 mass, and inversely as the square of their distance." 



" To apply the formulae which we have found, for the purpose of 

 presenting molecular action, to the phaenomena of the interior con- 

 stitution of bodies, requires methods of calculation which are not 

 yet developed, and which must become still more complicated when 

 the arrangement of the molecules, their form and their density, are 

 taken into consideration. I have thought it advisable however, in 

 consideration of the use to which it might be applied by able geome- 

 ters, not to postpone the publication of this mode of viewing molecu- 

 lar action. It is a subject which appears to me entitled to the great- 

 est attention, because the discovery of the laws of molecular action 

 must lead mathematicians to t^idhW^h molecular mechanism on a single 

 principle, just as the discovery of the law of universal attraction led 

 them to erect on a single basis the most splendid monument of hu- 

 man intellect, the mechanism of the heavens" — Scientific Memoirs^ 

 Part 111. p. 450. 



lODAL. 



M. Aime has sent to the Academy of Sciences a new compound 

 which he considers as atialogous to chloral, and which he has named 

 iodal, because iodine performs the same function in it as chlorine 

 does in chloral. 



This compound was obtained by causing iodine to act upon nitric 

 alcohol \_alconl nitrique']. By allowing the liquor to remain for 

 some days it was replaced by a fluid which was of a red colour and 

 heavier th.m water. The colour was owing to excess of iodine, and 

 it eventually disappeared spontaneously. In this way the iodal was 

 obtained nearly pure, except that it retained a little nitric alcohol 

 and nitrous aether, from which it is easy to free it. 



This substance when pure is nearly colourless. It has a sweet 

 taste ; its odour is somewhat aethereal. When poured on a red-hot 



Third Series. Vol. 10. No. 61. ^pril 1837. 2T 



