336 Dr A. Voeleker on the.. 
phur must have been-in combination with the organic. ele- 
ments of anthracite; for, even supposing the whole of the 
ash to consist of oxide of iron, the quantity of iron would 
still be too small to combine with all the sulphur. I am not 
aware that attention has been drawn to the fact of sulphur 
occurring in anthracite in organic combination ; but a little 
consideration, I think, will shew that such a compound may 
exist in nature, as we can prepare artificially, similar com- 
binations. It is well known that, in preparing sulphide of 
carbon, by passing sulphur in vapour over red-hot charcoal, 
the charcoal which remains in the vessel in which the experi- 
ment has been made, contains sulphur in such a state of com- 
bination that it cannot be expelled by heat, provided the air 
be excluded. According to Prout, a similar combination, of 
sulphur with carbon is easily obtained by washing on a filter 
common gunpowder with water till all the nitre is removed, 
and heating the insoluble part of the gunpowder in a retort ; 
some of the sulphur will distil off, and part of it remain in 
combination with the charcoal in the retort. This sulphur, 
and the nitrogen, which is always found in anthracite, tes- 
tify in favour of the vegetable origin of this mineral, and 
appear to support the opinion of those who regard it as the 
carbon-remains of organized bodies of the oldest formation, 
in which the process of carbonification has proceeded still 
farther than in coals. 
At all events, the above analysis furnishes an additional 
proof of the erroneous notion of former naturalists, who re- 
garded anthracite as primitive carbon. This notion, pro- 
bably, has arisen from the fact, that anthracite, exposed toa 
ved heat, produces no hydrocarbons like coals, and that it re- 
sembles carbon likewise, inasmuch as it is consumed by fire 
almost entirely, leaving but a small proportion of mineral 
matter.in the form of ash behind. The loss incurred’ by 
incineration of anthracite was generally calculated as carbon 
by, chemists, before the present. methods of analysing organic | 
substances were.known. Some observers, however, inferred) 
that water existed in a state of chemical combination in an- 
thracite, as appears from a statement of Lampadius, in an 
able paper on. the Anthracite of Schénfeld in Saxony, which 
sub Jot 
a 
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