396 RECORD OF SCIENCE FOR 1886. 



oxide by nitric acid and into a soluble sulphate by concentrated sul- 

 phuric acid. Its atomic weight is 72.32, and it proves to be Mendele- 

 jeflPs ekasUicitim. It forms two oxides, GeO and Ge02, two correspond- 

 iug- sulphides, and two chlorides, both of which are thin colorless fuming 

 liquids. (J. Prakt. Chem., 1886, ^assm.) 



Atomic Weight of Antimony. — Alfred Popper, of the University of 

 Graz, has made very careful determinations of the atomic weight of 

 antimony, and obtains a menii of 120.G9, which is an entire unit more 

 than J. P. Cooke's result, 119.00. He can find no source of error either 

 in Cooke's determinations or in his own, and suggests that the possible 

 presence of germanium may solve the question. (Ann. Chem.,ccxxxiii.) 



On some Probable Neic Elements^ by Alexander Pringle. — The autlior 

 states that he obtained the material on which he worked from his own 

 landed property, situated upon the river Tweed, county of Selkirk, 

 Scotland. He examined some gravel and other material forming the 

 debris of an ancient glacier, which he "imagines" to be the ancient 

 soil of the very ancient mountains in that geologic formation. He de- 

 scribes more or less fully no less than six probable new elements; 

 polymnestum is a metal of rather dark color, with an equivalent of 

 about 74, and forming four oxides of various colors; erebodium is as 

 black as charcoal and has an equivalent of 95.4; gadenium has an equiv- 

 alent of 43.G and forms two oxides ; hesperisium is a non-metallic ele- 

 ment having an equivalent of 45.2, and a red color and a metallic luster 

 like a sunset sky. Two other nameless elements are briefly claimed by 

 he author. (Chem. ISTews, liv, J G7.) 

 t 



Dysprosium, a new Element, by Lecoq de Boisbaudran. — In October, 

 1878, Delafontaine announced a new earth, which he called ijhilipinum, 

 but early in 1880 he recognized that it was identical with holmium, 

 previously studied by Soret and by Cleve. Later in the same year, 

 however, Delafontaine abandoned this view, because he determined that 

 pliilippium bad no absorption spectra. Lecoq de Boisbaudran has suc- 

 ceeded by several hundred fractional treatments in separating holmium 

 into two bodies, for the first of which he proposes to preserve the name 

 holmium, and the second he names dysi)rosium {5u(T-fu'tfftTo; = hsivdto 

 get at). The new holmium has for characteristic absorption bands C40.4 

 and 536.3, and the bands of dysprosium are 753 and 451.5. The author 

 has encountered extraordinary difficulties in the separation of hobnium, 

 erbium, terbium, and dysprosium, and the scarcity of material greatly 

 retards the laborious investigation. (Comptes Eendus, on, 1003 and 

 1005.) 



New Elements in Gadolinite and Samarskife detected Spectroscopically, 

 by William Crookes. — Finding that Lecoq de Boisbaudran is pursuing 

 the spectroscopic study of the rare earths iu the same track as himself, 



