Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 77 



responding with the modification A of tellurous acid ; it differs from 

 it in giving peculiar and very different salts from those yielded by 

 the acid soluble in water, or modification B. 



When telluric acid is exposed to a still higher temperature, it is 

 decomposed, gives oxygen gas, and leaves tellurous acid as white as 

 snow. Tellurous acid consists of one atom of radical and two atoms 

 of oxygen, and telluric acid of one of the former and three of oxygen, 

 or 72 78 of metal and 2722 oxygen. Like the tellurous acid, it has 

 a tendency to form salts with one, two and four atoms of acid to 

 one of base, and the salts of modification B, are at first converted 

 by heat into those of A : they then, at a red heat, give out oxygen, 

 and become tellurites. 



Telluric acid is not decomposed by sulphuretted hydrogen; it may 

 consequently be obtained by decomposing tellurate of lead by sul- 

 phuretted hydrogen and water: but if a weak solution of teliuric 

 acid in water, be saturated with sulphuretted hydrogen, and kept 

 well stopped in a warm place, sulphuret of tellurium is deposited, 

 which usually covers the interior of the bottle with a blackish grey 

 crust of a metallic lustre : it is easily detached. — Journal de Phar- 

 macies Nov. 1833. 



NEW SUBSTANCE IN OPIUM. 

 M. Pelletier has announced the discovery of a new crystalline 

 substance in opium, which is isomeric with morphia, and which he 

 calls Paramorphia. This substance differs essentially from morphia 

 in its chemical properties, although its composition is similar: it 

 cannot be confounded with codein, nor any of the other crystalline 

 bodies found in opium : its taste is analogous to that of pyrethrum. It 

 is infinitely more soluble in aether and alcohol thannarcotine is; it dif- 

 fers also from the last mentioned by its fusibility and crystallization. 

 It has a very marked action on the animal ceconomy ; and in very 

 small doses it kills a dog in a few minutes. M. Magendie has shown 

 that it acts upon the brain and occasions convulsions. — Journal de 

 Clumie Medicate, Mars 1833. 



DISCOVERY OF FOSSIL FISH, THE TOOTH OF A SAURIAN REP- 

 TILE, AND OTHER REMAINS, IN THE LIMESTONE OF BURDIE- 

 HOUSE, NEAR EDINBURGH: WITH REMARKS BY THE REV. 

 W. D. CONYBEARE. 



Dr. Hibbert has recently read before the Royal Society of 

 Edinburgh his description of the limestone bed of Burdiehouse, 

 about four miles to the south of Edinburgh, which forms an inferior 

 bed of the coal measures in the neighbourhood of Loanhead. This 

 limestone was shown to differ materially from the common carbo- 

 niferous limestone of marine origin, and to form a species of deposit 

 hitherto undescribed by geological writers, being not of a marine 

 but of a fluviatile character. While proofs were thus adduced that 

 the limestone bed of Burdiehouse indicated the existence of a lake, 

 or of some fluviatile expanse within which calcareous matter was 

 elaborated, it was likewise explained that its animated tenants were 



