108 



2. On General Differentiation. Part III. By the Rev. Pro- 



fessor Kelland. 



The object of this memoir is to effect the solution of differential 

 equations, and equations of differences, in which the index of differ- 

 entiation is a simple fraction. The process employed is the calcu- 

 lus of operations in which symbols of operation are treated in the 

 same way as symbols of quantity, provided the former are subject to 

 the same laws as the latter. 



3. Dr T. Anderson communicated the following Extracts 



from a Letter of Baron Berzelius : — 



" In the investigation of the vegetable alkalies which I have made 

 for the new edition of my Hand-Book, I consider myself to have 

 established, in a satisfactory manner, that the alkaline constituent of 

 these substances is ammonia, coupled with a variety of different com- 

 ppunds, such as carbo-hydrogens, organic oxides, chlorides, oxychlo- 

 rides, sulphurets, amides, and even saline compounds. The ammo- 

 nia in these substances can be convei'ted into amide, ammonium, or 

 oxide of ammonium, under different circumstances. Although, how- 

 ever, I conceive we are now on the right road with the basic consti- 

 tuent of the alkaloids, we are still very much in the dark with re- 

 gard to the substances which are coupled with the ammonia. The 

 investigation of these will be a much more difficult problem, if, in- 

 deed, we ever succeed in solving it. 



" I had, during the month of October, a visit of Fritsche of St 

 Petersburg, accompanied by young Struve, the son of the astronomer, 

 in companionship with whom, Fritsche has discovered and examined 

 a new acid compound of osmium, part of the investigations of which 

 were performed in my laboratory. This acid is of great theoretical 

 interest ; it is a fulminating acid, whose silver salt explodes at 66° 

 Cent, as violently as the fulminate of silver. As far as the difficult 

 analyses have gone, its constitution is — 



Os Oi + Os N. 



It is therefore osmic acid, coupled with the nituret of osmium, and 

 constitutes, as nearly as may well be, a proof of the view which I 

 some time since suggested, with regard to the constitution of the 

 common fulminic acid, viz., that it might consist of a non-explosive 

 acid, coupled with a metallic nituret. 



" Schonbein's gun-cotton is now interesting all our chemists. I 



