1826.] Scientific Notices — Chemistry. 69 



scientific journals of this day, and through his smaller works, 

 and separate memoirs, with which he has favoured the public ; 

 and we have listened with high interest to the instructions of 

 his lecture room. But after all, predisposed as we were to 

 expect much from a great effort of the mature age of sucli a 

 master, our expectations have been more than equalled. There 

 is nothing, the offspring of the present age, which, so far as we 

 are informed, surpasses this * Attempt to establish the First 

 Principles of Chemistry by Experiment.' The vast amount of 

 labour performed,— the patient and persevering repetition of 

 tedious and often difficult processes, frequently to the eighth or 

 tenth time— the consummate skill discovered in devising and 

 executing the experiments, and the surprising coincidence of the 

 results of analysis with the deductions of theory, excite our 

 astonishment, and prove beyond a question, that chemistry, if 

 not founded on intuitive, is built on demonstrative truth. Dr. 

 Thomson, after performing so much, might well have adopted a 

 motto preferring higher claims than that which he has chosen." 

 — (Silliraan's Journal.) 



2. Discovery of Lithia in the Mineral Waters of Bohemia. 

 By M. Berzelius. 



An extract of a letter from M. Berzelius to M. Dalong was 

 read to the Philomatic Society on the 27th of August, 1825, in 

 which that philosopher states, that on a fresh examination of the 

 mineral waters of Bohemia, he has discovered that lithia is one 

 of their constant and essential elements, a substance hitherto 

 only found in a few minerals. To detect and separate the lithia, 

 M." Berzelius pours a solution of phosphate of soda into the 

 mineral water, evaporates to dryness, and redissolves in cold 

 water all that is soluble in that menstruum. If lithia be present, 

 it is left in the state of an insoluble phosphate of lithia and soda. 

 The illustrious author of this discovery considers it as very pro- 

 bable that lithia exists also in sea water. The Editor of the 

 Bulletin des Sciences, from which we have extracted this notice, 

 states in a note, that he finds in the Alg. Lztterbock of Aug. 5, 

 1825, that M. Mulder announces that he has made some expe- 

 riments on the water of the Zuiderzee, but has not discovered 

 any lithia in it. 



3. Chemical Examination of Peridot. By M. Laurent Pierre 

 Walmstedt, Professor of Chemistry at Upsal. 



M. Mitscherlich, in his memoir on the relation which exists 

 between chemical proportions and crystalline forms, has stated 

 the composition of Peridot, which he there designates as the 

 only known compound of silica with isomorphous bases with 

 two atoms of oxygen, in which the quantities of oxygen of the 

 sihca and base are equal. He considers peridot as a silicate of 



