On the conjiihient Principles f)f jixcd Alkalies. ' 77 



I, however, formerly made an experiment which is con- 

 trary to that of Craaner ; I treated in a retort, at a red heat, 

 with iron, a mixture of cauftic potafli and red oxyd of mer- 

 cury, and obtained only oxygen gas, nitric acid, and water. 

 The alkali was totally difperfed. Another experiment, which 

 I have juft made, is equally unfavourable to it : I pounded, 

 oxygen<ited muriat of potafh with cryftallifed cauftic potafli, 

 and poured the mixture, which had become liquid, into a 

 bottle : I corked the bottle very clofely, and at the end of 

 three days poured over it muriatic acid, but I obferved no 

 eflfervefccncc. As carbon is not combuftible in the air but 

 at a red heat, if this principle enters into the compofition of 

 alkalies, it muft be united in them with hydrogen, unlefs the 

 azot ferves as the medium of its union with the oxygen. 



Brugnatelli has feparated butter from cream without the 

 aid of oxygen. He poured into one part of cream four parts of 

 warm water, and made the mixture pafs through a filter 

 of cloth into a clofe veflel, and in Avhich were extended fe- 

 veral other filters of the like kind formed of coarfe cloth. At 

 the end of twenty-four hours the ferous part was found im- 

 bibed by the cloth, and the butter completely feparated. 



Rouppe and Bicker have defcribed, in the firft volume of 

 the New Memoirs of the Society of Rotterdam, a new diafta- 

 tometer, which feems to anfwer the different purpofesof fuch 

 inftruments. Mention will be made of it in the Annales. 



A fpirit made from the refufe of the beet-root, and con- 

 fidered as fuperior to French brandy, has been already fold 

 at Berlin. The houfe of Claude has alfo diftributed famples 

 of arrack made from the fame fubftance^ which has exaftly 

 the tafte and fireno;th of foreign arrack. 



The memoir of Crell on the radical of the boracic acid 

 has bpen publiflied fome time. He treated that acid with 

 oxygenated muriatic acid, and obtained carbon. 



Trommfdorff has difcovered a new earth, which he calls 

 agujVme, from its properly of forming, with acids, falts defti- 



tute of tafte, 



XI. Curfory 



