Manchester Memoirs, Vol. xkn. (1901), No. 4. 



IV. Preliminary Note on the Preparation of Barium. 



By Edgar Stansfield, B.Sc. 



{Comviunicafed by R. S. Hutton, M.Sc.) 



Received and read October sgth, igoi. 



Many attempts have been made to prepare metallic 

 barium, but, up to the present, no satisfactory method of 

 obtaining it seems to have been described. There is a 

 general lack of chemical analyses of the products obtained 

 by the various workers, even when they profess to have 

 obtained the metal. 



In view of the satisfactory solution by Moissan* of 

 the difficulties of preparing the allied metal calcium, 

 which can now be obtained in a pure state, I decided to 

 undertake a critical study of the hitherto proposed 

 methods of preparing barium, in the hope of finding some 

 modified or new process which would give good results ; 

 care being taken to check each step by as accurate a 

 chemical analysis as possible. 



At present I propose to consi(kr three of these : — 



I. Method of Distillation of Amalgam : My results 

 are here in accordance with those of the more modern 

 experimenters.-j- I found that, although it is easy to 

 prepare a solid crystalline amalgam, containing nearly 

 5 per cent, of barium, by means of the electrolysis of a 

 saturated solution of barium chloride, using a mercury 



* Ann. Chivi. Phys. (7) iviii. (1899), p. 289. 



tKern, Zeits. anorg. Chem., xvii. (1898), p. 284; also xxv. (1900), 

 p. I ; Langbein, " Inaugural Dissertation," Konigsberg (1900). 



December gth, igoi. 



