Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 1 45 



the colouring matter of madder, and thus determining the quantity 

 which a given weight of madder contains. 



Memoirs and specimens, accompanied with a sealed paper con- 

 taining the name of the author, to be addressed, (carriage paid) be- 

 fore the 25th of April next, to M. Isaac Schlumberger at Mulhausen, 

 President of the Society, 



BISMUTH COBALT ORE. 



This mineral has hitherto been found only at Schneeberg in Sax- 

 ony : for a knowledge of it we are indebted to M. Kersten of Got- 

 tingen. — External Characters : Colour intermediate between lead 

 gray and steel gray ; lustre metallic, and glistening or glimmering ; 

 texture radiated, partly stellular partly parallel. It scratches fluor 

 spar, but this degree of hardness is occasioned by intermixed quartz. 

 Streak dull, colour not changed, but the powder soils. Specific gra- 

 vity = 4-5 — 4'7. — Chemical Characters: Before the blowpipe on 

 charcoal gives out white vapours of arsenious acid ; deposits on it 

 a yellow crust, during which the ore becomes of a brown colour. 

 When well roasted before the blowpipe, and then mixed with glass 

 of borax and melted, it communicates to it a smalt blue colour. 

 If some small pieces of the ore are exposed to a low red heat in a 

 glass tube, it affords a considerable quantity of arsenious acid. It 

 is composed of 



Arsenic 77-9602 



Cobalt 9-8866 



Iron 4-7695 



Bismuth 3-8866 



Copper ] -3030 



Nickel 1-1063 



Sulphur 10160 



99-9282 

 The characteristic ingredients of this ore are arsenic-cobalt, and 

 arsenic-bismuth, a combination of these metals hitherto not met with 

 in the mineral kingdom. — Jamesons, Edin. Journ. Jan. 1827. 



ISERINE AND IRON SAND IN CHESHIRE. 

 Dr. Traill, of Liverpool, many years ago discovered the above 

 substances at Seacourse opposite to Liverpool, loose on the beach 

 and disseminated through a bed of crumbling sandstone which lies 

 below the thick bed of loam which forms the Cheshire soil at that 

 spot. He afterwards traced it along the shores of the Mersey for 

 several miles, and has very lately traced it quite across the hundred 

 of Wirral, in Cheshire, from tile shores of the Mersey to those of 

 the i:)ee.— Jameson's Edinb. Journ. Jan. 1827. 



EXPERIMENTS ON CERTAIN OXALATES. 



M. S^ruilas finds that when dry and pure oxalate of potash, either 

 acidulous or neutral, is finely powdered with an e(iual weight of 

 antimony and heated in a forge fire for eight or fen minutes in a co- 



New Series. Vol. 1. No. 2. Feb. 1827. U vercd 



