394 



RECORD OF SCIENCE FOR 1886. 



sivit.v of the irou, and tho action in a few seconds ceased entirely. 

 When the beaker "was brought back into the neighborhood of the mag- 

 net a touch of a ghiss rod excited again tlie violent chemical action. 

 Further researches are in progress. (Am. J. Sci. xxxi, 27li.) 



Density of Liquid Oxygen and of Liquid Xitroyen, by S. Wroblewski. — 

 The author finds that liquid oxygen has a density of O.G at — IIS^C. 

 and of 1.21: at —200° under a pressure of 0.02'". The following table 

 gives the constants for liquid nitrogen: 



Hence the atomic volume of oxygen is less than 14, and that of nitro- 

 gen is near 15.5. 



The density of liquid air at —140.6° C. and 45 atmospheres is equal 

 to O.G. (Comptes Eendus, cii, 1010.) 



INORGANIC. 



Bedeterminations of atomic weiglds. 



Austrium, a new Element. — Dr. E.Linnemann, professor of chemistry 

 at Prague, died in April, 1886. Among his papers was found a letter 

 addressed to the Vienna Acaelemy of Sciences, announcing the discov- 

 ery of a new element, which he called austrium, Aus. Dr. Linnemann 

 obtained the new metal from orthite of Arendal ; its spectrum shows 

 two violet lines; the wave lengths were found to be, for Aus. o-, A = 416.5, 

 and for Aus. /?, A=403.0. Prof. F. Lippich, of Prague, who presented 

 Dr. Linnemann's paper to the Vienna Academy, called attention to 

 the fact that three not yet identified lines (A = 415.56, A=416.08, and 

 A=41G.47) are sliown in Angstrom's atlas of the normal spectrum of 

 the sun in the neighborhood of the Aus. a line; the last of them might 



