304 Royal Society. 
chlorine can be procul from it, it can no longer act on gold or 
platinum, and nothing rises from it but a mixture of nitrous acid 
and muriatic acid. ‘* It appears then that nitro muriatic acid 
ewes its peculiar properties to a mutial decomposition ef the 
nitric and muriatic acid; and that water, chioriie, and nitrous 
acid gas are the results; and the attractions which produce these 
results appear to be the attraction of oxygen for hydrogen to 
form water, and that of nitrous acid gas for water.” Aqua regia 
€ does not oxidate gold and platina, but merely causes their com- 
bination wich chlorme; and when it produces neutral salis, they 
are mixtures, and uot cheinical combinations of nitrates and 
compounds of chiorine.” 
9. Gn the freezing of Wine, and the Specific Gravity of Sul- 
phuric Acid; by S. Parkes. —10, Observations on the applica- 
tion of Coal Gas to the purposes of Illumination; by Mr. Brande. 
—l1. Au anomalous case of Chemical Affinity, by R. Phillips, 
Esq.—12. Effects of a paralytic Stroke upon the powers of ad- 
justment of the Eyes to near Distances, by Sir E, Home, Bart.— 
13. Review of Beudant’s “ Essai d’un Cours élémentaire et 
général des Sciences physiques.”—14. Life and Writings of 
Hedwig. &c. &c. &c. 
LXII. Proceedings of Learned Societies. 
ROYAL SOCIETY. 
March 28 and April 4. | HE reading of Dr. Thos. Thomson’s 
paper on Phosphoric Acid was continued. In the series of ex- 
periments which the author had undertaken to ascertain with 
precision the weight of an atom of phosphorus, he noticed se- 
veral combinations of acids which had not hitherto attracted the 
attention of chemists, aid to which he gave new names. But as 
he did not pursue his analysis to the extreme in every case, he -re- 
served his detailed observations on some of them for a future 
paper, his chief object being to detect the combinations of phos- 
phorus. Many of his conclusions are the result of calculation 
on the previously-known combinations of atoms of oxygen with 
different bodies, rather than of direct experiment. In some 
cases his experiments did not correspond with his pre-conceived 
theory of atomical combination, and then he readily abandoned 
the accuracy of the former to the supposed infallibility of the 
latter. Nevertheless he found, beyond doubt, that phosphorus 
combines with lime in six different proportions; and that, as 
three of these combinations could not be multiples, they were in 
direct opposition to the atomic theory so pompously announced 
by 
