42 Improvements in Physical Science [Jan. 
Amylate of Lead. 
Potatoenstareh So ccled as gee FS sterols tele LOO 
Oxide of lead ...cceeses 293 @eeeeoee 38°89 
—_—_ 
100 
5. Action of Sugar on Metalline Salts.—Vogel has published a 
long paper to show that when sugar is boiled with various metallic 
oxides and with different metalline salts, it has the property of de- 
composing them. Sometimes it reduces the oxide to the metallic 
state; at others (and this most frequently) it deprives the oxide of 
one of the doses of oxygen with which it was combined, and thereby 
reduces it to an inferior degree of oxidation. The result of his 
experiments is as follows :— 
When a solution of acetate of copper is boiled with sugar, no 
gas is evolved ; but a brown powder is precipitated, which is prot- 
oxide of copper. Sugar of milk, honey, manna, and other sweet 
bodies, produce the same effect. Scheele’s sweet principle of the 
oils, fat, and wax, likewise occasion the same precipitation, but 
much more slowly. 
When sulphate of copper and sugar are boiled together, the 
copper is precipitated in the metallic state. All the other sweet 
substances produce the same effect. 
When nitrate or muriate of copper is boiled with sugar, no prot- 
oxide precipitates ; but the salts are converted into pronitrates and 
promuriates. The salts of iron, zinc, tin, and manganese; in 
short, of all the metals which have the property of decomposing 
water, are not decomposed by sugar. 
Sugar boiled with nitrate of mercury throws down metallic mer- 
cury. It produces no effect upon calomel ; but converts corrosive 
sublimate into calomel. 
Nitrate of silver and muriate of gold are very readily decomposed 
by. sugar. Sugar and manna convert peroxide of mercury into 
protoxide. 
Sugar readily dissolves the red oxide of lead or litharge. It de- 
prives the brown oxide of lead of part of its oxygen, and then dis- 
solves it. 
VIII. MINERAL WATERS. 
1. Sea Water—vVarious analyses of sea water have been lately 
published by Lichtenberg, Vogel, and Bouillon Lagrange. Mr. 
Pfaff, of Kiel, one of the most accurate of the German chemists, 
was induced by these experiments to make a careful analysis of the 
waters of the Baltic, which wash the coast of Germany at Kiel. 
The result of his analysis is as follows. 
The specific gravity of the water was 1:014. 100 grains of it 
contained the following salts :— 
‘ 
