262 Translations and abstracts from ihe French. 
3. Influence of Magnetism. 
(a) On chemical action in general.—The Abbe Rendu, 
professor of chemistry at Chamberry, communicated to M. 
Biot the following experiment. 
A tube bent in the form of the letter V was filled with the 
tincture of red cabbage. An iron wire was plunged in eac 
branch, and one of them was supported by the north pole and 
the other by the south pole of a horse shoe magnet. Ina quar- 
ter of an hour the color of the tincture became of a beautt- 
ful green. It was the same in both branches of the tube. 
The same change was effected, though in much longer 
time, (two days,) when the wires in two small tubes closed 
at the extremities, which were plunged in the liquid. 
he discoloration was not the effect of a spontaneous 
change, for the fluid, of itself, becomes red and not green. 
as found, by Ritter, that a magnetized iron wire, com- 
bined with another not magnetized, produced a galvanic 
palpitation in frogs. Ritter placed a magnetized iron wire 
i of glass, in an earthen plate, and poured over it 
weak nitric acid: the north pole was more rapidly attacked 
than the south pole, and was much sooner surrounded with a 
deposition of oxide. 
When three small flasks were filled with water, either pure 
or slightly acidified, and in the first, the north 
magnetized wire was placed, in the second, a wire not mag- 
netized, and in the third, the south pole of a magnetized 
wire; the oxidation began with the south pole, and was 
considerably advanced in that, and sensibly with the non 
magnetized wire, before it was perceived in that with the 
north pole. In this experiment it was necessary to cover the 
water with fresh oil of almonds, to prevent oxidation from 
the air, and to avoid all difference of exposure to solar lights. 
—Annales de Chim. et de Phys. Juin, 1828. 
sity of Christiana, and has since been confirmed, by Prof. 
V, about half 
. - 
has a quantity of clean Mercury poured into it, but not suffi- 
_ cient to close the communication between the two branches. 
