Cadmium. 63 
liable to be confounded with cancer and ulceration of this organ? 
—2. By what characteristics may they be distinguished in a de- 
cided manner ?—3. What curatives or palliatives has experience 
proved to be most efficacious ?—It is requested that chemical ob- 
servations and examinations after death may be made the basis 
of the observations offered. The prize is a gold medal of the 
value of 300 frances. The dissertations to be in French or in 
Latin, and sent to M. Trucy, Secretary to the Society, before 
July next. 
ROYAL MEDICAL SOCIETY, BOURDEAUX. 
This Society has proposed the following Prize Question :— 
*¢ What are the results of too rapid a growth? What the means 
best adapted to moderate its progress when injurious, and remedy 
the evils which it produces ?”——The memoir to contain precise 
facts supported by medical practice, and not merely a development 
‘of hypothesis. To be written in French or in Latin, and trans- 
mitted to the Secretary before July 1819. Premium 300 franks. 
XIII. Intelligence and Miscelianeous Articles. 
CADMIUM. 
Tins new metal, which was discovered by M. Stromeyer in the 
autumn of 1817, while officially examining the apothecaries’ 
shops in Hanover, is described by M. Gay-Lussac* as resembling 
tin in colour, lustre (but not tarnishing in the air), softness, duc- 
tility, and the crackling sound which is heard when this metal is 
bent. Cadmium, when exposed to heat, is changed into an 
orange-yellow oxide, not volatile, and easily reduced again to the 
metallic state: it gives no colour to borax; dissolves readily in 
acids, and forms colourless salts, from which it is precipitated, 
white, by alkalies: by the hydrosulphuric acid it is, like arsenic, 
precipitated yellow; by zinc, in the metallic state. Specif. grav. 
at 77° of Fahr. 8635. 
_ This metal has been more recently examined by J. G. Chil- 
dren, esq.+ He found its spec. grav. compared with distilled 
water at 60° to be 8-67, and when hammered 9:05. He de- 
scribes it as resembling tin in external appearance, hardness, duc- 
tility, and sound when bent; fusible considerably below a red- 
heat, and very volatile—but its oxide remains fixed in that tem- 
perature. It dissolves readily in cold diluted nitric acid, and the 
evaporated solution leaves a deliquescent salt soluble in alcohol, 
to the flame of which it gives no colour. The sulphuric and hy- 
* Annales de Chimie et de Physique, tom. viii. 
+ Journal of Science and the Arts, vol. vi. 
drochloric 
