3 C 20 Mr Johnston on Vanadium. 



means of hydrogen gas. Berzelius, at a white heat, obtained 

 a slightly cohering mass, which he considered to be but imper- 

 fectly reduced. Both the oxide and the acid are reduced easily 

 when heated with potassium or sodium, with the evolution of 

 much heat and flame, but without detonation. But the metal 

 is easiest obtained by mixing the oxide, or the chloride prepared 

 by evaporating the muriatic solution to dryness, with oil, and 

 forming it into a ball. This is placed in a small charcoal cru- 

 cible — surrounded with powdered charcoal — placed within one 

 or two other crucibles, and heated to full whiteness for two or 

 three hours. By this process it is reduced, but not fused, being 

 in the state of a grayish, slightly cohering, powder. To pro- 

 cure it in a massive state, the oxide must be previously fused 

 in a platinum spoon, the crystalline mass surrounded with 

 charcoal and oil, and heated for several hours. The mass thus 

 obtained has a metallic lustre, and possesses the following pro- 

 perties : — 



1. It is of a reddish- white colour, approaching to that of 

 bismuth, so hard as to be with difficulty affected by the file ; 

 and brittle, giving, when rubbed down, a grayish powder. 



2. It does not affect the magnetic needle, but is an excel- 

 lent conductor of electricity. 



3. Heated in the flame of a lamp before the blowpipe in a 

 pair of forceps, or on charcoal, or to a full red heat in a plati- 

 num spoon, it burns with a visible incandescence, and becomes 

 indigo-blue or steel-gray, exhibiting on the surface traces of 

 partial fusion. It undergoes no further change unless the heat 

 be long continued, when it fuses into a red liquid, which on 

 cooling below redness contracts in volume, and shoots at once 

 into beautiful radiating star-like groups of acicular crystals, 

 occasionally of a reddish, but generally of a steel-gray colour, 

 and high degree of lustre. 



4. Heated to incipient redness in an atmosphere of oxygen 

 gas, it burns, emitting a brilliant reddish light, and is converted 

 into an indigo blue oxide of a crystalline structure, which fuses 

 with difficulty in a platinum spoon over a spirit lamp. 



5. In chlorine gas it burns at a heat below redness, forming 

 a greenish yellow vapour, which condenses into a deep brown- 



