84 



CHEMISTRY. 



restoring peace 



hostilities were renewed, and some engage- 

 ments took place, resulting in favor of the 

 Government party, and in the suppression 

 of the insurrection. In December, 1869, the 

 President issued a decree, appointing January 

 1st as the day on which martial law should 

 cease, and convoking the Congress of the re- 

 public for the same day. 



The Government issued a decree exempting 

 from import dues many articles applicable to 

 manufacturing and agricultural purposes, as fol- 

 lows: 

 The Citizen President of the Republic to Us Inhabitants : 



Whereas, in the decree of the 31st of March last, 

 setting forth the internal dues to be levied upon the 



aniline is heated with mercuric chloride, this 

 substance is produced in considerable quanti- 

 ties, besides the ordinary formation of aniline 

 red.' His mode of obtaining it is as follows : 

 The crude mass resulting from the heating of 

 aniline with mercuric chloride is dissolved in 

 dilute hydrochloric acid ; ammonia is then 

 added in excess, and a final washing-out 

 given with ether. The ethereal solution thus 

 obtained must be repeatedly washed with 

 water until the washings cease to acquire a 

 pink color. Thus purified, it has a greenish- 

 yellow color, and exhibits a green fluorescence. 

 When evaporated to dryness spontaneously, 

 the residue consists of two amorphous sub- 



origmaf value'of merchandise imported into the re- stances, one red and the other orange, the 

 public, nothing is said in relation to articles exempt fluorescence being apparently due to the latter, 

 from duties, in order to avoid embarrassments to the W j 1 j c } 1 ex ists in the proportion of ab 



prompt dispatch of business at custom-houses, in 

 the exercise of his powers, he decrees : 

 ARTICLE 1. No import duty whatever shall accrue 



about 10 per 



cent, of the amount of aniline red. Fluorani 

 line is almost insoluble in water when cold, 



at any of "the ports of the republic upon the folio wing but slightly soluble in hot water, being pre- 



articles : Quicksilver, ploughs, large hammers, wool- dpitated as the water cools. It is soluble in 



cards, weed-hooks, scythes, grinding and winnowing 



machines, shovels, yokes, hand-pumps for cisterns, 



rautA* of ncrriciiltural implements, tmininer-shears and 



cases of agricultural implements, pruning-shears an 

 tar, empty barrels, hydraulic pumps and pitch ; drays, 

 hand-carts, children's carriages, cultivators, geograph- 

 ical charts, crucibles for melting metals, copper 

 nails for vessels, bags or sacks of all kinds, and Ro- 



man cement ; barrel staves or shooks, surgical and 

 mathematical instruments, and oakum ; guano and 

 any other matter for manuring lands, and globes for 

 geographical instruction ; flour and grains of all 

 kinds, printing-presses, astronomical, physical, hy- 

 draulic, and chemical instruments, not already speci- 

 fied ; printed books and printing-type, cotton duck 

 for vessels' sails, and manta drill, when imported by 

 owners of ships or vessels ; organs for churches, and 

 gold coined or in bullion, mills for pulverizing coffee 

 or any other grain, machetes, or large knives, and 

 "macanas;" maguey cords for rigging, when im- 

 ported for their own use by the owners of ships ; sil- 

 ver in plate or coined, ruled paper for music, areom- 

 eters, millstones, pieces of machinery for all indus- 

 trial purposes ; corrosive sublimate, and seeds of all 

 giants, lumber for house-building, poisons prepared 

 lor the preservation of skins and hides, and spirits 

 of turpentine. 



ABT. 2. The invoice value of the principal of the 

 articles expressed will be deducted by the adminis- 

 tration of the customs at the time of effecting the 

 liquidations. 



ABT. 3. The present law will commence to have 

 effect forty days from and after this date. 



Given at Managua, the 2d of November, 1869. 

 PEDRO JOAQUIN CHAMORRO. 



RAMON SAENZ, Secretary of the Treasury. 



In December, a decree was published with 

 reference to customs regulations, providing 

 that all shippers of goods to Nicaraguan ports 

 should produce to the Nicaraguan Consul, for 

 his signature, in the port from which they are 

 shipped, an invoice in duplicate, expressing the 

 quantity and description of the merchandise, 

 the number, weight, and measurement of the 

 packages, without which goods entering the 

 ports of the republic will be liable to seizure. 



CHEMISTRY (see, 



New Fluorescent 



also, HYDROGENIUM). A 

 Substance. Mr. John Par- 



dilute hydrochloric, nitric, sulphuric, and acetic 

 acids, giving fluorescent solutions ; is not af- 

 fected by sulphide of ammonium, and but 

 slightly by hypochlorite of calcium. When a 

 beam of sunlight, made conical by a quartz lens, 

 is projected on a concentrated ethereal solu- 

 tion of fluoraniline, all the rays capable of de- 

 veloping fluorescence are absorbed at the sur- 

 face, so that no cone of light is visible in the 

 solution ; but with a dilute solution a brilliant 

 green cone is produced. The colors of the 

 ethereal solution and its fluorescence bear a re- 

 markable resemblance to those of uranium, 

 but with this difference, that when the fluores- 

 cent light is examined in the spectroscope, 

 while the fluorescent spectrum of uranium is 

 discontinuous, that of fluoraniline is contin- 

 uous. The author has also discovered, in the 

 aniline red made from stannic chloride, another 

 fluorescent substance associated with fluorani- 

 line, of which the fluorescent spectrum con- 

 sists of red, a very bright-green band, and 

 some blue only. To the unassisted eye, the 

 fluorescence has a cold blue tint. 



Ammonium Alloys and Nascent- Hydrogen 

 Tests. In a paper communicated to the Phil- 

 osophical Magazine for July, Albert H. Galla- 

 tin, M. D., of New York, throws some light on 

 the vexed question of the existence of the 

 metal ammonium, as determined from its al- 

 loys. He starts out with the proposition that 

 if hydrogen escaping from an ammoniacal 

 amalgam can be shown to be in a nascent 

 state, it would be evidence that it had just 

 been in chemical combination with the am- 

 monia in other words, that metallic am- 

 monium existed in the amalgam. This he 

 claims to have established as follows : Some 

 pellets of sodium were placed in contact with 

 some particles of the transparent variety of 

 phosphorus, wrapped in bibulous paper and 



