Lithia—Lithium. 67 
tion in the vacuum of an air-pump yields blue rhomboidal ery- 
stals: the solution when boiled precipitates the metal of a deep 
red, 
Lampate of lead. Red oxide of lead dissolved by the acid 
gives a white easily-crystallizable salt, of a sweetish taste, which 
burns with flame, and glows like a coal. 
Neither the acid nor its salts have any action on the oxide of 
tin or on salts of tin. “The acid has no action on the red oxide, 
on the sulphate, or on the nitrate of iron; but the lampates of 
potash and ammonia, separately, turn the nitrate to a beautiful 
blood-red colour, without precipitate, and joined throw down 
the red oxide. 
Lampic acid instantly blackens when sulphuric acid is added 
to it, and a large quantity of carbon is disengaged: with nitric 
acid, nitrous gas is given off and oxalic acid formed. 
By analysis the acid appears to Mr. Daniel to be composed: 
of 40:7 of carbon, 7*7 of hydrogen, 51°6 of oxygen and hydrogen, 
in the proportions which form water=100.—This analysis is 
interesting, as affording an exception tothe general rule laid down. 
by the French chemists, that in all vegetable acids the oxygen is 
to the hydrogen in a proportion greater than is necessary to form 
water. 
Mr. Daniel suggests that the singular property of the lampic 
acid and its salts, of precipitating the metals, may hereafter be 
usefully applied to the plating of delicate works with gold and 
platinum. 
LITHIA—LITHIUM. 
For the discovery of the new fixed alkali Lithia, having for its 
base a new metal (/ithium), we are indebted to a pupil of Ber- 
zelius, M. Arfyresdon, who obtained it from petalite, a mineral 
which by his analysis was found to be composed of silica 80 parts, 
alumina 17, and the new alkali 5 parts.—It is extracted from the 
petalite by calcining the latter, in powder, with carbonate of 
barytes, separating the earths, and obtaining the alkali combined 
with an acid. Its combinations with acids are, generally, very 
fusible. The sulphate and muriate liquefy below a red heat ; the 
carbonate, when red-hot, acting violently on the platinum cguci- 
ble. The former crystallizes readily, and retains no water of 
crystallization ; nor is their solution precipitable by muriate of 
platinum, or by tartaric acid. The nitrate crystallizes in rhom- 
boids, and attracts moisture: the muriate is highly deliquescent : 
the carbonate is difficultly soluble in water ; and when evaporated 
the salt crystallizes in slender prisms, It has a greater capacity 
for saturating the acids than even magnesia. 
M. Vauquelin verified these experiments, and found that with 
sulphur lithia yields a aA ag sulphuret : by his analysis 
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