1872.] Chemrcal Science. 115 
hair (especially the reddish coloured), coal, and minerals, of all of which only 
minute quantities are required. 
Dr. Roux has published a note on the existence of copper in certain waters. 
The experiments were chiefly made at the request of the Maire of Saint- 
Jean-d’Angely (Charente Inférieure), bearing upon the question that some of 
the spring-water of that town had become impregnated with copper, owing to 
the waste water of a coppersmith’s shop having by percolation through 
the soil found its way to the spring. The result of very minutely conducted 
assays of the soil, as well as of the water in the neighbourhood of the works, 
revealed the presence of copper, but only in very small quantity. Water from 
Rochefort, pumped up by the aid of copper pumps, contained rather more 
copper; but in neither case was the quantity of that metal found in the waters 
alluded to so large as to be capable of giving rise to any injury to health, the 
less so as the French, by daily using copper cooking-vessels, obtain from these 
a sufficient quantity of copper in their system to render the detection of that 
metal in their blood an easy matter. 
In the gold mines at the Thames, New Zealand, there are found tolerably 
large quantities of grey antimony ore, or stibnite, associated with the quartz 
and other rocks of the elder series, from which geld is extra@ted. Mr. Pattison 
Muir has examined a sample of this stibnite. It has the appearance of a large 
mass of steel-grey crystals, radiating chiefly from a central point, some of the 
crystals being fully an inch in length, and generally very perfe@ly formed. 
_ The crystals are prisms belonging to the trimetric system, soft, and easily cut 
with the knife in the direction parallel to the principal axis, showing, when 
cut, a brilliant metallic lustre. Adhering to the crystals is a small amount of 
gangue, composed seemingly of siliceous matter. For the purpose of analysis 
a large crystal was broken off perfectly free from any foreign matter. The 
specific gravity of the crystals = 4°625. Onanalysis it was found to contain— 
Antimony, 71°09; iron, 0°24; arsenic, traces; sulphur, 28°47 per cent. 
In making some experiments on the action of sulphur on paraffin, Mr. John 
Galletly found that a mixture of these substances, either in equal parts or with 
a larger proportion of sulphur, wnen heated in a flask not greatly above the 
melting-point of the sulphur, begins to evolve hydrosulphuric acid, and con 
tinues to give off this gas steadily, while kept moderately heated for a consi- 
derable time. This process is a most convenient one for laboratory use. 
With a round flask holding about a pound of the materials fitted with a tube 
bent at right angles about }-inch bore and 12 to 18 inches long, containing a 
little loose cotton-wool, and having a smaller tube fitted to the end of this for 
dipping into the liquid through which it is desired to pass the gas, a convenient 
stream can be obtained lasting several days. The production of the gas can 
be stopped and renewed at pleasure by withdrawing or applying the heat. 
An Argand lamp should be employed, or if a Bunsen is used, the top piece 
should be on the tube for spreading the flame, so as to avoid heating on 
one spot. Heavy paraffin oil used for lubricating machinery can be substi- 
tuted for the solid paraffin, and good results are also obtained with commercial 
stearic acid, but with the latter the tube conveying the gas soon becomes 
covered with drops of a milky liquid, which is probably water and finely 
divided sulphur. With paraffin the tubes remain clear and bright, except for 
a little sulphur sublimate close to the neck of the flask. Reinsch recommends 
a laboratory process for obtaining pure hydrosulphuric acid by heating in a 
glass flask equal parts of sulphur and suet. The recommendation does not 
seem to have been generally followed, but the advantages resulting from the 
substitution of paraffin for suet may lead to the more usual adoption of this 
process. 
Drs. K. Kraut and O. Popp have described a series of experiments made 
with solutions of carbonate of potassa of different strength, into which sodium 
amalgam was placed and left for a longer or shorter time, the result being the 
formation of a crystalline potassium amalgam, mixed, however, with a very 
small quantity of sodium, which the authors consider to have been left in 
combination with the mercury. The percentage composition of several of the 
