462 Boracic Acid. 



ROTAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES AND BELLES LETTRES OF 

 BRUSSELS. 



In the Phil. Mag. for August 1 S 1 8, mention was made of three 

 questions proposed by this Academy for competition, in the Class 

 of Sciences during the year 1819. 



On the first question only one Memoir has been presented, 

 written in Dutch. The Academy after a rigorous examination of 

 it are of opinion, that though it bears maiks of being written by 

 a very learned geomettician, it his not furnished a satisfactopy 

 solution of the question ; that is to say, tliat the author has not 

 succeeded, 1st, in proving that the hypothesis adopted by Euler 

 is really a physical hypothesis. 2d, in presenting under what can' 

 be considered as a new form the beautiful theory resulting from 

 it — nor 3d, in assigning the reason truly physical, Why a square 

 plane with the weight P. attached to its centre exerts an equal 

 pressure on the four supports placed at its four angles. Consider- 

 ing, however, that the Memoir has cost a great deal of labour, 

 though unfortunately too foreign in general to the ()uestion pro- 

 posed, and that it is partly a commentary on the beautiful Me- 

 moir of Euler, and partly a mathematical factum, in which are 

 collected almost all the arguments which can be advanced in its 

 favour, — the Academy have voted to the author a silver medal 

 of encouragement. 



On opening the billet which accompanied this Memoir it was 

 found to be the production of Col. Huguenin, Director of the 

 Cannon Foundry at Liege. 



On the two other questions proposed by the Society at the same 

 time, no papers have been offered, and the Society have resolved 

 to abandon them. 



LXXVI. Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles, 



BOEACIC ACID. 



Xt has been known for some time that Boracic Acid is found in 

 solution in certain lakes in Tuscany. M. Robiquet (in the Jour- 

 nal de Pharmacie, 1819) states that M. Dubrouzet, one of the 

 proprietors of the lakes in Cherchaio, informed him that he had 

 obtained about two per cent, of this acid by evaporating the wa- 

 ters, and offered him any quantity of the acid, delivered in Paris 

 at 3 francs thekilogram. Indeed (■onsiderable quantities have been 

 sent to Paris, but hitherto without finding purchasers. The acid 

 is in small scales of a greyish colour : its taste slightly bitter ; its 

 aqueous solution reddens Htmus. It is not precipitated by either 

 nitrate of silver or oxalate of ammonia j but strongly by muriate 



of 



