Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 309 



name a candidate for the place vacant in the Javdin des Plantes, by 

 the death of M. Bosc— MM. Auguste, and Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, 

 Soulange Bodin, Girard and Dutrochet, offered themselves as candi- 

 dates for the place vacant in the section of Agriculture. — M. Isidore 

 Bourdon deposited a sealed packet relating to some physiological re- 

 searches.— M. Brongniart read an extract of a letter from M. Julia 

 Delanoue, stating that in the cave of Miremont, department of la 

 Dordogne, fossil bones had been found in general similar to those of 

 the caves of Germany, England, and France. — M. de Beaujeu com- 

 municated additional information respecting the manufacture of beet 

 sugar. — M. Malbec sent a memoir On the periodical oscillations of 

 the barometer. 



Afterwards the following were read : — A memoir by M. Dutrochet 

 On the grubbing up of the heath called la gatine, in the department 

 of Vienne ; — a memoir by M. S<^rullas On a new compound of chlorine 

 and cyanogen ; — the Second Part of a dissertation by M. Gannel On 

 the treatment of phthisis puhnonalis by chlorine ; — a work by M. Ville 

 relating to the duration of the generations of man in the city of Paris, 

 during the eighteenth century. 



The Academy then proceeded to supply M, Chaussier's place. M. 

 Serres having obtained 38 votes, was elected. 



XLVII. Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 



EFFECTS OF LIGHT ON SOLUTION OF TARTAR-EMETIC AND 

 ANTIMONIAL WINE. 



DR. JOHN DAVY states, that when a solution of tartar-emetic 

 is exposed for some weeks to the direct rays of the sun, in a 

 close vessel, it is rendered turbid, and a precipitate forms, which 

 has the properties of peroxide of antimony. In one instance, a 

 drachm of tartar-emetic, dissolved in four ounces of distilled water, 

 was exposed to sunshine at Corfu and Malta during twelve months ; 

 the precipitate collected weighed one grain, and consisted of per- 

 oxide as well as protoxide of antimony. The decomposition from 

 the action of the sun's rays takes place very slowl}^ at first, till the 

 solution has become turbid, and then the change is greatly accele- 

 rated. This probably is owing to the particles of oxide of antimony 

 disengaged exerting an influence on the others, similar to what is 

 witnessed in the experiment of the precipitation from an acid solu- 

 tion of one metal by another. 



It might, perhaps, be expected that antimonial wine would be 

 more liable to change from exposure to the sun's rays than a solution 

 of tartar-emetic ; but the fact is the reverse. After a year's exposure, 

 a portion of this wine, prepared according to the London Pharmaco- 

 poeia, had undergone no change; and two different samples of antimo- 

 nial wine, one made with a sweet wine like Malaga, and another with 

 a dry wine like sherry, which'had been many years kept in the Medi- 

 terranean, exposed to dull light, were both as good as when first 

 prepared. There was a very minute sediment of extractive matter 



in 



