174 Miscellaneous Intelligence. 



eluded, then, that the solar rays had the power of electrifying glass, 

 and it only remained for me to ascertain if this effect were owing to 

 the real existence of electricity in these rays, or rather to the in- 

 creased temperature of the glass, which I could easily determine 

 by heating a plate of glass, and trying it with the electrometer. 

 This I did several times, but never discovered any signs of elec- 

 tricity. I observed, also, that the glass plate exposed to the rays of 

 the sun never became electric if placed beneath another glass plate, 

 or if the face of the sun was obscured by the intervention of a cloud. 

 These few experiments, which I have been induced to perform, seem 

 to me sufficient to prove electricity in the solar rays. The influ- 

 ence of such a fact on the meteorological phenomena of terrestrial 

 magnetism, and on so many other phenomena of nature, will, I 

 hope, induce yourself and other philosophers to pursue the subject 

 further." — Antologia, No. 100. 

 Forli, April 25, 1829. 



Professor Saverio Barlocci of Rome, in a Memoir on the In- 

 fluence of Solar Light, in the Production of Electric and Magnetic 

 Phenomena, inserted in vol. xli. of the Giornale Arcadico, relates 

 the following experiment he had performed, to ascertain the electric 

 power of the solar light. Having decomposed it with a prism, he 

 made the red ray and the violet ray fall upon two discs of blackened 

 copper, each of which was attached to a copper wire. Two nuts of 

 the same metal, sliding upon a vertical glass rod, and to which the 

 two wires were attached, permitted their being brought near toge- 

 ther, or removed at pleasure. Having suspended a prepared frog 

 by the body to the upper wire, the legs were placed upon the lower 

 one. The apparatus being thus arranged, whenever (the discs being 

 respectively covered with the red and violet rays) a contact was 

 formed between the extreme parts of the two wires, evident signs 

 of contraction were observed in the frog. — Note by Prof. Gazzeri. 



Having experimented two summers since, upon the solar spec- 

 trum, in exactly the same way, except that a very delicate galvano- 

 meter was used instead of a frog, no electricity could be obtained 

 by means of an English sun. — M. P. ' 



6. Atomic Weights of Iodine and Bromine. — The variation in 

 the numbers given by different chemists for iodine induced M. 

 Berzelius to experiment on the subject. Iodide of potassium was 

 dissolved in very little boiling water, and a few drops of nitrate of 

 silver added ; the precipitate formed was redissolved by agitation, 

 &c, and then the whole diluted with much cold water: an insoluble 

 compound of silver fell down, which, if the iodide of potassium con- 

 tained any chlorine, would evidently contain all that chlorine as 

 chloride of silver. The purified and filtered solution was then 

 precipitated by nitrate of silver, and the iodide of silver obtained, 

 separated. 



