Muriate of Soda. 279 



SOCIETY OF THE FRIENDS OF THE SCIENCES AT WARSAW. 



This society has charged two of its members, Messrs. 

 Carteau and Stacio, to undertake a mineralogical tour to the 

 Carpathian mountains. Another member of the same 

 society has already explored the eastern part of these moun- 

 tains, in order to collect observations in tnineralogy, ge- 

 ology, and oryctognosy. He is now engaged in a like 

 tour through the mountains of Interior Austria, from which 

 he will proceed to Upper Italy and the Swiss Alps. On 

 his return he will go on a similar tour to the Caucasian 

 mountains. 



FRENCH NATIONAL INSTITUTE. 



The medal founded by M. de Lalande for the best work 

 on astronomy, was adjudged by the institute, in the sitting 

 of the 15th, to M. Harding, who discovered a new planet 

 at Lilienthal, near Bremen, on the 5th of Sept, last. This 

 able astronomer has been invited to Gottingen to take the 

 direction of the observatory become celebrated by the ob- 

 servations of Tobias Mayer. 



LII. Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 



PRODUCTION OF MURIATE OF SODA BY THE GALVANIC 

 DECOMPOSITION OF WATER. 



vvuR philosophical readers will agree with us in opinion, 

 that the following interesting communication promises to 

 lead to most important consequences : 



To Mr. Tilkch. 



*' SIR, Cambridge, April 23, 1805. 



" I take this opportunity of laying before the public, 

 through the medium of your Magazine, if you think it 

 worthy a place in that work, the following experiment : 



" I took about a pint of distilled water, and decomposed 

 one half of it by means of galvanism ; the other half I 

 evaporated, and I found to remain at the bottom of the glass 

 a small quantity of salt, which upon examination proved 

 to be muriate of soda, or conmion salt. — What induced me 

 to try the experiment was this; I knew that when water 

 was decomposed by means of galvanism, the water near one 

 of the wires had alkaline, while that near the other had 

 acid properties. This being the case, I inferred, that if an 

 alkali and an acid were really produced, I should by decom- 

 posing a large quantity of water obtain a small quantity of 

 S 4 somu 



