1819.] Scientific Intelligence. 143 



regulus was always brittle. By adopting a different method, I 

 have at last succeeded ; and as a description of the process in 

 winch this was effected will add one more amusing experiment 

 to those which have already taken place with the gas blow-pipe, 

 and enable every one of your chemical readers to obtain nickel 

 in a state of perfect purity and malleability, without the smallest 

 difficulty, I will now relate it as briefly as possible. 



Having dissolved the brittle regulus, sold under the name of 

 nickel by Mr. Knight, of Foster-lane, London, in highly concen- 

 trated nitric acid, and afterwards evaporated almost all the acid, 

 leaving only a small residue of the solution, in its concentrated 

 state, for crystallization, I obtained hard green crystals of the 

 nitrate of nickel. Then placing some of these crystals within a 

 cavity scooped in a stick of charcoal, I exposed them to the 

 flame of the gas blow-pipe. Presently the whole of the nitrate 

 upon the charcoal became liquid as water, and in this state, being 

 still carefully supported and exposed to the flame of the gas 

 blow-pipe, all moisture was driven off; a dry crust remaining 

 upon the charcoal, which, by further exposure to the flame, 

 became a dark slag. This being now removed, and placed in 

 another charcoal crucible, as before, and again exposed to the 

 flame of the gas blow-pipe, ran together in a state of fusion, and 

 was held boiling until it ultimately appeared in the form of 

 a metallic bead, with a very tarnished surface. When it 

 became cold, it was highly magnetic ; and upon being cut 

 with a file, it exhibited the whiteness of silver. It was then 

 beat out upon an anvil by violent shocks of a large hammer, 

 being perfectly malleable. Wishing to extend the surface of it, 

 and fearing to lose it from the anvil, Professor Cumming, who 

 examined it, placed it within one of Mr. Knight's beautiful steel 

 mortars, in which it was compressed into a circular lamina. 

 This I have sent to you for your examination. I have also 

 added another result of fusion before the gas blow-pipe, which i$ 

 also worthy of your notice. It is, perhaps, a similar result to 

 that exhibited by wood-tin after fusion; of which you before 

 published an account; namely, a crystal of titanium oxide ; 

 which, in the part fused, not only exhibits a considerable degree 

 of metallic lustre without being cut by a file ; but, if you will 

 examine the melted surface with a powerful lens, you will 

 perceive traces of that dendritic crystallization by which metals 

 in cooling are often characterized. However, as I suspect, 

 from its retaining its metallic appearance unaltered (which 

 is about equal to that exhibited by selenium), that it is still in the 

 state of an oxide, I request that you will have the goodness to 

 settle this point. It owes nothing of its metallic aspect to any 

 contact with carbon during fusion ; not having been placed upon 

 charcoal, but being exposed per se to the action of the gas blow- 

 pipe- 1. remain, See. &c. 



CemhrlAgc, Mm 21 , 1 b 1 9. K J> W A K U D A N I E L C LA EKE. 



