174 



CHATTANOOGA. 



CHEMISTRY. 



ican, named James Thomas, and handed over 

 to a general of the revolutionary party. As the 

 company observed a strict neutrality in the 

 revolutionary troubles, both parties declared 

 themselves satisfied with such a course, and the 

 steamers were restored to the company. 



The war in San Salvador finally took a turn 

 unfavorable to Gen. Barrios. By the begin- 

 ning of September he was completely sur- 

 rounded in his capital, and its seaport cut off 

 by the invading army. In November he es- 

 caped, with the assistance of the United States 

 minister and the English consul. Gen. Carrera, 

 having now conquered the whole republic, 

 appointed Gen. Duefias acting president, and 

 on November 15th, with his army, retired to 

 Guatemala. 



CHATTANOOGA was a flourishing village 

 in Hamilton county, Tennessee, situated on the 

 Tennessee river, two hundred and fifty miles 

 below Knoxville, and one hundred and forty 

 miles southeast of Nashville. It is the termi- 

 nus of the Nashville and Chattanooga railroad, 

 and of the Western and Atlantic railroad, 

 which connects it with the chief towns of 

 Georgia. The Tennessee river is navigable by 

 steam during eight months in the year, and by 

 small boats at all times. This has made Chat- 

 tanooga one of the most important towns in 

 the State. The surplus productions of East 

 Tennessee, and mostly of Middle Tennessee, 

 are shipped from this point. It was occupied 

 by Gen. Rosecrans in September, and subse- 

 quently held by the Federal army. Its location 

 rendered it a very important military position. 



CHEMISTRY. The record of the present 

 volume under this head is designed to present, 

 in brief form, some of the more important dis- 

 coveries and theoretic views, in connection 

 with chemical science, which have been pub- 

 lished or have especially attracted attention 

 during the year 1863. It is not intended to 

 devote as much space as in the preceding vol- 

 ume to applications of chemistry ; nor will the 

 great body of the discoveries which continue to 

 be made in the. way of new derivatives from 

 substances of an organic nature, and most of 

 which are as yet interesting only to the chemist, 

 be embraced in this account. For certain 

 topics more or less directly related to chemistry, 

 the reader is referred to the articles, HYGIENE, 

 ILLUMINATION, MATERIALS FOB CONSTRUCTION, 

 &c., METEORS AND METEORITES, PHYSIOLOGY, 

 and SPECTRCM OBSERVATIONS. 



I. ELEMENTS. A writer in a recent number 

 of a scientific journal, in speaking of one of the 

 new metals below named, humorously remarks 

 that the metals would appear to be envious of 

 the asteroids, and to be doing their best to keep 

 pace with them in revealing themselves to mod- 

 ern science. To this remark, which must be 

 understood as in a certain degree retrospective, 

 it may be added, however, that while the as- 

 teroids are succumbing to the increased power 

 secured in a long-used instrument, the tele- 

 scope, most of the newly-discovered metals 



have the honor of having waited for the de- 

 velopment of a wholly new scientific means 

 and apparatus, the spectroscope. (See CAESIUM, 

 INDIUM, MAGNESIUM, RUBIDIUM, SIDEEIUM, THAL- 

 LIUM, and WASIUM.) 



II. ALLOTROPIC STATES. Oxygen. The reader 

 is referred to this head, in the article CHEMIS- 

 TRY in the preceding volume. By the method 

 there briefly stated, that with hypermanganate 

 of potash, sulphuric acid, and peroxide of 

 barium, Schonbein states that ozone proper 

 ( O) is produced in large quantities, and pos- 

 sessing all the energetic oxidizing properties 

 of that obtained during the slow oxidation of 

 phosphorus or by electrolysis. 



Bottger claims priority in the discovery of 

 the method just referred to. He recommends 

 a mixture of two parts of dry hypermanganate 

 of potash with three of sulphuric acid ; and 

 finding that this mixture at ordinary temper- 

 atures slowly evolves oxygen, he declares the 

 peroxide of barium unnecessary. He finds the 

 mixture one of the most powerful oxidizing 

 agents yet known. Ether, alcohol, and the 

 ethereal oils, brought into contact with a mere 

 trace of it, burst into flame, and flowers of sul- 

 phur are converted with some degree of ex- 

 plosion into sulphuric acM. 



Schonbein (Journal fur profit. Chemie, 86, 

 p. 30) endeavors further to establish the exist- 

 ence of three distinct states of oxygen the 

 neutral, the -negative, and the positive; or, 

 common oxygen, ozone, and antozone. Among 

 the facts adduced are such as the following : 

 The O rapidly turns brown strips of paper 

 soaked in sulphate of manganese, in conse- 

 quence of forming peroxide of manganese, 

 Mn Oj ; while +O not only has no such 

 effect, but even bleaches paper previously ren- 

 dered brown with the peroxide. Hyperman- 

 ganic acid is rapidly decolorized by +O, with 

 formation of protoxide of manganese, which, 

 by -O, may then further be converted into 

 Mn O 2 . In place of sulphate of manganese, 

 basic acetate of lend may be used : this with 

 -O gives Pb Oj, in its turn reduced by +O to 

 PbO and neutral oxygen. Schonbein's ex- 

 planation of facts of this sort proceeds upon 

 the assumption that in the peroxide of lead, 

 hypermanganate of potash, and chromic acid, 

 the whole or a part of the combined oxygen 

 exists in the form of -O ; in the peroxides of 

 barium and hydrogen, in the form of + O. 

 He believes that union of equal weights of +0 

 and -O gives ordinary oxygen. He lays it 

 down as a principle, that for the oxidation of 

 the same bodies the same kind of oxygen is 

 always necessary. 



The fact of production of both nitrous acid 

 and ammonia in air, in presence of water and 

 nascent oxygen, was announced by Prof. T. S. 

 Hunt in 1861; and this fact has become the 

 occasion of the objections frequently urged 

 against the employment of paper saturated 

 with starch and iodide of potassium (ozon- 

 ometric paper, so-called) for determining the 



