State of Chemical Science on the Continent. 215 
is of a blackish-gray colour, and has the metallic lustre. This 
is carbonion united with a little iron and manganese, from which 
we may separate it by a long-continued digestion with aqua regia 
and muriatic acid. The sulphur does not take the latter metals 
from the fire ; which proves that they are chemically combined 
with the carbonion. 
In the course of my lecture yesterday I tried to produce bo- 
rium by treating borax with charcoal, aud the experiment com- 
pletely succeeded. I mixed 220 grains of calcined borax with 
18 grains of very fine charcoal, and I kept this mixture for two 
hours at a red heat in a gun-barrel. There was produced a black 
fused mass ; which after having been washed with water, and 
afterwards dried, left a deep olive-coloured powder, which had 
all the characters and all the propertiés ascribed by Davy to bo- 
rium. 
I discovered nearly two months since a new sparkling pyro- 
phorus, which preserves its property of shining for a long time, 
and which may serve as a portable match. We obtain it by cal- 
cining during an hour at a gentle red heat, and in a gun barrel, 
a mixture of one part of calcined alum, and two parts of subcar- 
honate of potash, and from one-half to a whole part of Jamp- 
black. This pyrophorus seems to be composed of potassion and 
sulphuret of carbonion. I also met the sulphuret of carbonion 
in the liver-formed ore of mercury of Idria, as may be seen in 
Schweiger’s Journal. 
I have also recently discovered that the muriate of lead of 
Derbyshire is composed of phosphoric acid and of lead, and that 
the ceta camit of Peru consists of chloric acid and copper. 
M. Dulong, continuing the researches of Thomson, has found 
that the oxalic acid in uniting warm with the oxides of zine or 
lead, allows 0-20 to escape of its weight in water: the oxalates 
resulting from it do not afterwards yield in their decomposition 
in the dry way any thing but gaseous oxide of carbon, carbonic 
acid, and the oxide of the metal. M. Dulong asks if these salts 
are carbonites or carbonates of reduced metal? He thinks they 
are the latter. ‘The oxalates of other metals do not give out 
any water except at a very strong heat; afterwards they yield 
carbonic acid ; no oxide of carbon, but, in lieu of it, the metal 
reduced ; and the oxalates of soluble earth give out, under the 
action of heat, empyreumatic oil, water, oxide of carbon, car- 
honated hydrogen, carbonic acid, carbon, and sub-carbonate. 
We see that these differences depend on the retentive forces or 
on the energy of the oxides which form the bases of the salts. 
It is long since I asserted that the vegetable acids were hy- 
dvates, sub-hydrates, or super-hydrates of carbonons acid. This 
acid exists no more in the uncombined state than the oxide of 
O04 sulphur, 
