hitelligetice and Miscellaneous Articles. 235 



than any metallic solution, and fortunately the nitric acid, being 

 commercially manufactured, is sufficiently cheap for the purpose. 



The battery excited on this occasion was probably the most 

 powerful ever seen, although of very small size ; it consisted of 100 

 pairs of zinc and platina plates two inches by four, with interposed 

 burned pipe cJay diaphragms, and was charged with concentrated 

 nitric and dilute sulphuric acid ; its superficial relation to the great 

 battery of Davy was as 1 : 40. 



The arc of light was from three to four inches long and of great 

 volume ; its prismatic spectrum was of extreme brilliancy, and it was 

 polarized and dipolarized by Mr. Grove, showing its identity with 

 solar light. 



[We understand that Mr. Grove has received the appointment of 

 Professor of Experimental Philosophy in the London Institution. — 

 Edit.] 



XL. Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 



ON THE FOSSIL WAX OF GALLICIA, BY M. P. WALTER. 



SEVERAL years since a fossil -wax was discovered at Truskawietz, 

 in Gallicia, or Austrian Poland, in beds of grit and bituminous 

 clay, at a depth of two or three metres. T procured this substance, 

 but want of leisure has prevented me from examining it : it is with 

 regret that I feel it necessary to publish the little that I know respect- 

 ing it ; and I have decided to do so only in the hope that I shall 

 hereafter be enabled to examine it completely. 



This fossil is of a brownish black colour ; its smell is penetrating 

 and bituminous ; it is slightly soluble in alcohol and aether ; it fuses 

 at 156° Fahr. When heated in a retort by means of an oil-bath, it 

 first fuses, and at 212° it loses a little water ; at o72° nothing what- 

 ever distils ; above this, ebullition begins to occur, and continues 

 up to 662°: oils first appear, afterwards a yellow-coloured substance, 

 which forms the greater portion of the distilled product. This mat- 

 ter, freed from the empyreumatic oils by pressure through cloth, and 

 dissolved in boiling aether, precipitates on cooling in the state of a 

 beautiful white pearly substance. 



It yielded by analysis. 



Carbon 85'85 



Hydrogen .... 14'28 



This therefore is the composition of bicarburetted hydrogen and 

 paraffin ; and what induces me to believe that it is actually jjaraffin 

 is, that sulphuric acid appears not to exert any action upon it. The 

 examination of oils, formed by the distillation of fossil wax, may 

 throw great light on the formation of naphtha and analogous com- 

 pounds, which are probably derived from the decomposition of this 

 kind of bodies. — Ann. de C/tim. el de Phys., 75, 212. 



