THALLIUM. 



791 



this must be added the annual clips of wool, on 

 an average four pounds to the fleece, sold at 

 forty cents a pound. Wool is a cash article in 

 Texas, and can always be sold at its New York 

 and Boston value, less the cost of transporta- 

 tion and insurance. The majority of AVOO!- 

 growers shear their sheep dry, and sell the 

 wool in the dirt. Of those who do wash, not 

 one in ten makes a clean job of it. Shearers 

 go through the country in April and May, shear- 

 ing at from tive to eight cents per head, and 

 tying the fleeces for sacking. 



Wolves and half-wild dogs and hogs are the 

 worst enemies of the sheep-raiser, and his folds 

 should be wolf and hog tight. Either when 

 hungry will attack the flock in the pen or on 

 the prairie, and if not driven off, kill great num- 

 bers. The hogs kill only the lambs, but are 

 terribly destructive in early spring. 



THALLIUM. Among the recently discov- 

 ered metals, this appears still to command the 

 highest interest. M. Bottger has indicated a 

 new source of this metal in the crystalline salt 

 obtained from the mother-liquor in the salt- 

 works at Manheim, and in which minute quan- 

 tities of its chloride exist along with much of 

 the chlorides of csesium and rubidium. E. Bun- 

 sen has also obtained thallium from a lye from 

 the Rammelsberg pyrites in the sulphate of zinc 

 works at Goslar. The simplest process is that 

 of placing in the cold lye sheets of zinc : a nearly 

 equal weight of a spongy metallic precipitate is 

 secured. This, washed and suitably treated, 

 yields for every cubic metre of the lye, and along 

 with some lead and zinc, also 7.4 kilog. of cad- 

 mium, 1.6 do. of copper, and 0.6 do. of thallium. 

 Digesting with water to which sulphuric acid 

 is from time to time added, the cadmium and 

 thallium dissolve, leaving the copper ; and add- 

 ing iodide of potassium, the result is a precipi- 

 tate of 0.97 kilog. of pure iodide of thallium, 

 readily purified by washing. 



The symbol adopted for thallium is Tl; its 

 equivalent is 204, or according to Werther about 

 203.5. M. Lamy finds the usual series of phos- 

 phates, pyrophosphates, and metaphosphate of 

 thallium : these salts are distinguished from 

 those of the alkalies proper by giving their 

 solutions being neither too hot nor too dilute 

 white precipitates with both chlorhydric and 

 nitric acids. M. Strecker has> investigated the 

 salts of the peroxide of thallium, or thallic oxide, 

 T10 3 those of thallous oxide having been be- 

 fore examined. Among the former he finds a 

 sulphate and nitrate, and several double salts, 

 including an oxalate of peroxide of thallium and 

 ammonia. By experiment on animals, M. Lamy 

 finds that thallium, at least in form of sulphate, 

 possesses very decided poisonous properties; 

 and M. Paulet has also treated of the same, in 

 a memoir to the French Academy. 



It is stated that thallium is very generally 

 found associated with potassium and sodium; 

 and Lamy's classification of it with the alkaline 

 metals is still 'sustained by many reactions, and 

 especially by its forming by substitution a series 



of alcohols, the thallic, the analogy of which 

 to those afforded in like manner by potassium 

 and sodium is striking. In this view of the 

 nature and relations of thallium, Dnmas and 

 Bottger coincide. M. Erdmann, on the con- 

 trary, insists on certain differences between 

 thallium and the alkaline metals ; as, that while 

 the oxide of the former behaves as an alkali, its 

 carbonate, unlike those of potassa and soda, 

 does not show the alkaline reaction. M. Nick- 

 les also, agreeing with the view of Mr. Crookes, 

 indicates resemblances of thallium to lead ; as, 

 that it can be made to form a sort of " tree of 

 Saturn ; " that it yields an oxide, sulphide, 

 chloride and iodide, that are insoluble in water ; 

 and that its compounds, like the lead prepara- 

 tions, are highly poisonous. In conductivity 

 for heat, also, it approaches lead, or more closely, 

 perhaps, iron. In a note in the Amer. Jour. 

 of Science, January, 1866, M. Nickles cites from 

 his own communication in the Journal of Chem- 

 istry and Pharmacy, of November preceding, 

 the fact that we have now an alum with a base 

 of silver, as also one with a thallium base, iso- 

 morphous with that of potash, etc. ; and he 

 infers that all these bodies, unlike in other re- 

 spects, and perhaps barium also, as suggested 

 by Baudrimont, may be put in the same group. 

 The facts, he thinks, show that thallium should 

 be considered as a point of union between the 

 alkaline metals on one side and lead and silver 

 on the other. 



The thallic alcohols are formed by replacing 

 an equivalent of hydrogen in wood-spirit, com- 

 mon alcohol, etc., by one of thallium, giving 

 C 2 H 3 (T1)O. 2) C 4 H 5 (T1)O 2 , 0,oH,,(Tl)O2, etc. The 

 first of these, the methyl-compound, is solid 

 and crystalline. The second, ethyl-thallic alco- 

 hol, i. e., the analogue of common alcohol, is a 

 heavy, colorless, oily liquid: density at O0., 

 3.55 ; indices of refraction for the spectral lines 

 jBand H, respectively 1.661 and 1.759; disper- 

 sive power difference of the preceding values, 

 0'098 (that of bisulphide of carbon being but 

 0'079). Thus, this is at once the heaviest, the 

 most refractive, and the most dispersive of yet 

 known organic compounds. The third, or amyl- 

 thallic alcohol, is also a colorless oil. These 

 alcohols decompose on boiling, and by addition 

 of most acids, of chloroform, or of water the 

 last producing a hydrate of oxide of thallium, 

 and regenerating the alcohol proper. They are 

 all soluble in the corresponding alcohol and in 

 ether; and they burn in air with the green 

 flame proper to the metal. M. Nickles has 

 prepared a memoir upon chloro- and bromo- 

 metallic ethers of thallium. 



The author last named has also shown that 

 spectrum-analysis fails to reveal the presence 

 of thallium, when its compounds are blended 

 with those of sodium, and especially with its 

 chloride, the green ray in these cases not 

 making its appearance. It will follow, in 

 view of the known presence of sodium in the 

 atmosphere of the sun and in those of some of 

 the fixed stars, that, although their light may 



