Progress of Foreign Sciericc. 315 



like number of degrees of the tliermometer, is ihe same for all 

 liquids." If M. Despretz will consult Mr. Dalton's New Si/stem 

 of Che7nical Philosophy, vol. i. p. 20, published upwards of 

 tliirtecn years ago, he will find that the Eno-lish philosopher 

 there abandons that supposed relation, which otherwise is 

 ^ewn in a Paper on Heat, published in the Philosophical 

 Transactions for 1818, not to accord with experiment. We 

 are thus saved the trouble of analyzing M. Despretz's Memoir. 



III. Simple Bodies.— In the number of Gilbert's Annalen 

 for last May, Counsellor Giesse, Professor of Chemistry at 

 Dorpat, communicates the account of a new metal, which, he 

 thinks, he has extracted from the residuum left, on distilling to 

 dryness different varieties of English sulphuric acid. One va- 

 riety left out;of 16 ounces, 9| grains of a white residuum, which 

 differed from the greater part of these residuums by the total 

 absence of sulphate of lead. " The tints of colour," he says, 

 '' were surprising, which the residuum exhibited, when it was 

 heated slowly and repeatedly in a platinum crucible over a 

 lamp. From citron-yellow, it passed on cooling back again 

 to white. At the second gradual heating, the mass appeared 

 greenish yellow, then of a fine reddish yellow ; and, on cool- 

 ing, It passed once more through lemon-yellow to white. 

 Strongly heated, a third time, it became sulphur-yellow, le- 

 mon-yellow, and reddish-yellow ; it then fused with intumes- 

 cence, and diffused a vapour, smelling of sulphuric acid. On 

 becoming cold, the middle part was whitish ; but the borders 

 of a brownish hue. Though the complete series of experi- 

 ments, which he meditated, were interrupted by a fit of sick- 

 ness, yet he thinks sufficient have been made to satisfy him, 

 that the above residuum contains a new metal, which must have 

 come from the sulphur employed in manufacturing the acid. 



'i he appearances characteristic of the new metallic substance 

 are produced by pouring on the residuum, after it has been tho- 

 roughly edulcorated with water, a little caustic alkaline ley 

 Immediately after the addition of the first drops, the white co- 

 lour becomes yellow, which with heat assumes a golden tinge. 

 He poured muriatic acid on the inspissated heated mass, so as 

 speedily to dissolve it; he then diluted and filtered the solu- 

 tion, and poured in sulphuretted hydrogen water, which occa- 

 sioned a precipitate of yellow-brown (locks, of the hydro-sulphu- 

 rct of the metal. After these were separated, the liquid yielded 

 with ammonia, a hydro-sulphuret of iron in flocks, which' 

 speedily became dark green. 



The metallic substance is susceptible, he says, of difl'ercnt 

 degrees of oxidation ; and becomes first yellovv, tiien passes 

 into a lively brown, bluish or dark grey ; and it finally changes 

 to white. At a certain stage of oxidizemcnt it exhibits more the 



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