810 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



White Lead. 



Dr. Fitch explained a new process for the manufacture of white 

 lead in a very short time, by dissolving litharge in nitric acid, pre- 

 cipitating it in sulphuric acid and boiling it in oxalic acid. He also 

 exhibited specimens of the product. 



Dr. VanderAveyde'said this article should be called the sulphate 

 of lead. It was by Overman's patent. 



Dr. Feuchtwanger thought that white lead of a superior kind 

 could not be produced in the time mentioned — an hour and a half. 



Fire Detector. 



Mr. Dion exhibited a machine by which he claims that fires can 

 immediately be detected and made known. The principle of this 

 detector is that metals expand by heat; the expansion of a wire 

 sets free a catch wdiich acts on a spring bell, giving the necessary 

 information of the presence of fire. This machine can be made 

 sensitive enough to detect an increase of temperature as low as 

 one-sixteenth part of a degree. 



Mr. I^. F. Walling read the following paper, which he illus- 

 trated with a number of beautiful models, also by diagrams, which 

 will be found on another page. 



Molecular Motions and their Relations to Universal Force. 



The definitions generally given of matter, force, and motion, 

 seem vague and contradictory, owing apparently to the absence in 

 the minds of their authors of a distinct line of demarkation be- 

 tween the conceptions of force and those of matter. For example, 

 most of the so called primary properties of matter, such as impene- 

 trability, hardness, elasticity, etc., are in reality but manifesta- 

 tions of the associated force. 



The Avonderful discoveries, moreover, relative to the molecular 

 forces, which have been made during the last twenty or thirty 

 years, and the generalizations already derived from them, seem to 

 point towards the more comprehensive generalization, based upon 

 more exact definitions, which is attempted in the hypothesis wliich 

 forms the sul)ject of this paper. 



By this hjpothcsis, all known forces are considered to be lim- 

 ited portions of an infinite universal force, of which the sum of all 

 that is termed "actual" or "kinetic energy," or in other words, 

 that which isactuall}' associated with matter, and causes its motion, 

 is only an infinitcssimal portion, comparatively, while the infinitely 



