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LXXV. IntelUgence and Miscellaneous Ar ikies . 



J. HE celebrated M. Van Mons, of Brussels, has lately piiblisliet' 

 French translations of Sir Humphry Davy's valuable Chemical 

 and Scientific Works. The same indefatigable foreigner has also 

 presented a Memoir to the Royal Academy of Sweden, on three 

 new chemical bodies, knoAvn by the appellation of the Metallo- 

 fluores. Iodine, and the Detonating Oil of Dulong. From this 

 ingenious work, which consists of upwards of 300 octavo pages, 

 it is our intention to present the readers of the Philosophical 

 Magazine with some interesting extracts. In the mean time we 

 have the satisfaction to state, that M. Van Mons is about to re- 

 sume the pubHcation of his highly useful Journal of Chemistry 

 and the Aits, which has been long suspended in consequence of 

 the unsettled state of the Continent. 



M. Van Mons thus expresses himself in his letter to the Edi- 

 tor of this Journal : 



" It is said that Gay Lussac has lately read to the Institute a 

 long work upon Iodine, and that he has examined this new oxy- 

 genated acid under its various relations. I have heard that he 

 speaks of the intactile powder upon hearsay only ; and he seems 

 to consider azote and sulphur as combustibles, the one alcalifi- 

 able, and the other acidifiable : it is in this light that 1 have also 

 considered these bodies and all the other bodies, except the me- 

 tals reduced into hydrogen ; for whatever can be fixed of the 

 hydrogen or of the reduced metals, ought either to be oxygen or 

 to contain oxygen, and nmst have received these bodies as sub- 

 stitutes for caloric. 



" I have made some new experiments on the metallo-fluores, 

 and I have found that any given metal takes up the dry fluoric 

 acid from anv given oxide, as hvdrogen takes up the dry sulphu- 

 ric acid from all the sulphates ; the dry phosphoric acid from all 

 the phosphates ; and as oxvgen takes up the dry iodic acid from 

 all the iodates, &c. I have spoken at full length of those bo- 

 dies in the Memoir sent herewith, and also in my notes upon 

 Da\y. In addition to the drv fluoric acid being combined with 

 the metals in the two relations, to be salified into oxidulates and 

 oxides, it appeared to me that, in a third instance, which answers 

 to that of solution, the acid is situated in the same way in pro- 

 yjortion with the hydrogen, the sulphuiic acid is laid bare, and 

 that in its second proportion with the oxygen the muriatic acid 

 is equally so. It also appeared to me that the hydrogen allowed 

 itself to be incorporated with my metallic fluores ; for, as dull ;dj 

 they were befofe, they now assumed a metallic lustre : neverthe- 

 less I am not entirely certain of this fact. These will be true 



G g 2 fluors 



