CAPE COLONY, ETC. 



CHEMISTRY. 



83 



for the savages to hold communication with 

 each other. It was therefore an alarming cir- 

 cumstance that the Zooloo King had chosen 

 this time to advance claims of territory in the 

 district of Utrecht, at the southern extremity 

 of the Transvaal, which both Sir Theophilus 

 Shepstone, the Administrator of that province, 

 and the Provincial Government of Natal were 

 not disposed to admit. There was much cause 

 to apprehend that Cetywayo was assured of 

 an alliance with his restless warlike neighbor 

 Sekukuni, the late un conquered foe of the 

 Transvaal Republic ; and it was estimated that 

 both potentates together could command a joint 

 force of 47,000 men, armed with muskets and 

 rifles. In the middle of March Sekukuni de- 

 clared himself openly hostile, and laid siege to 

 two forts in the direction of Ley den burg. Se- 

 vere fighting took place on June 22d at Lar- 

 genbeck on the northern border, in which the 

 rebels were defeated. The Kamas tribe was 

 disarmed and dispersed. In August a mutiny 

 broke out in Zooloo Land, in the native police. 

 Skirmishing had been going on during July and 

 August, and by the end of August the Caffres 

 had completely invested Leydenburg. 



A rising took place among the Griquas, in 

 Griqua Land East, during April, On the 14th 

 they made an armed demonstration against 

 Kokstaclt, but were defeated with considerable 

 loss. The rising was completely suppressed by 

 the end of the month. 



The Caffre war gave rise to a ministerial 

 crisis. It was well known that differences of 

 opinion had occurred on more than one occasion 

 between the Governor and the Cabinet. Pos- 

 sibly it could not be otherwise while the Gov- 

 ernor as commander-in-chief was responsible 

 to the Imperial authorities for the movements 

 and actions of the British forces, and at the 

 same time was constitutionally advised in all 

 matters of government by a ministry answer- 

 able for their policy to the Colonial Parliament 

 only. The dissensions in the Executive Coun- 

 cil came to a head in the first days of February, 

 when the General, Sir A. Cunynghame, called 

 attention to the fact of there being virtually 

 two commands on the frontier, one composed 

 of the military, controlled by the General, and 

 another a colonial army formed of the burgher 

 and volunteer contingents, each operating in- 

 dependently of the other. Sir Bartle Frere 

 took the military view that there could be no 

 such division, that even the issuing of commis- 

 sions to the officers at the head of the volunteer 

 expeditions against the enemy was illegal and 

 unconstitutional, and that the colonial auxili- 

 ary troops must be placed under Lieutenant- 

 General Sir A. Cunynghame, the officer com- 

 manding the British forces in South Africa. 

 The Governor, finding the Ministry persistent 

 in the course of maintaining the independent 

 action of the Colonial Government with re- 

 spect to the burgher and volunteer contingents, 

 informed Mr. Molteno and his colleagues that 

 he would feel it his duty to call to his Councils 



another Administration as soon as he could 

 form the same. A new ministry was formed 

 by Mr. Gordon Sprigg, and was composed as 

 follows : Mr. Sprigg, Premier ; Mr. Uppington, 

 Attorney-General ; Mr. Laing, Commissioner of 

 Crown Lands and Public Works ; Mr. Ayliffe, 

 Secretary for Native Affairs ; and Mr. Miller, 

 Treasurer-General. Parliament met on May 

 10th. Among the first questions it considered 

 was the action of Sir Bartle Frere in dismissing 

 the Molteno Ministry. A resolution supporting 

 the action of the Governor was passed by a 

 \ote of 37 to 22. 



CHEMISTRY. Nitrification. -The process 

 generally in use for preparing saltpeter (nitrate 

 of potassium) is as follows: Soil, containing 

 more or less vegetable mold and carbonate of 

 lime, is mixed with a certain proportion of 

 stable manure, or other refuse organic matter, 

 and disposed in small heaps, to the interior of 

 which there must be free access of air; the 

 heaps are sheltered from rain, and watered from 

 time to time with stable sewage. After two 

 or three years the earth is found to be sufficient- 

 ly rich in niter to be worth leaching. Of late, 

 however, niter is obtained far more expedi- 

 tiously by the treatment of Peruvian nitrate 

 of sodium with potassium chloride, the prod- 

 uct being saltpeter and common salt. But 

 how is the phenomenon of nitrification as seen 

 in the artificial process to be explained ? Clear- 

 ly it involves oxidation of nitrogen into nitric 

 acid ; but the question which has long vexed 

 the minds of chemists concerns the rationale 

 of this oxidation. The old chemists believed 

 that a decaying organic body evolves more or 

 less of its nitrogen in a free state, and that this 

 while nascent combines with the oxygen of the 

 air. According to many modern chemists, the 

 oxidizing agent is ozone. Others again incline 

 to the belief that nitrogen is never oxidized in 

 the soil except when in the form of ammonia, 

 and that the nitrogen of organic matter is con- 

 verted into ammonia as a preliminary to nitrifi- 

 cation. According to some experiments, the 

 ferric oxide, which gives a red color to so many 

 soils, is itself an oxidizing agent, and capable of 

 converting ammonia into nitric acid. 



An entirely new explanation is offered by 

 Messrs. Schloesing and Mtintz, and their theo- 

 ry appears to be confirmed by the researches 

 of others. According to this theory, nitrifica- 

 tion, so far from being a purely chemical pro- 

 cess, is the work of a living organism compara- 

 ble to the yeast-plant. They have found that 

 nitrification, however active, is immediately 

 stopped by chloroform vapor, herein showing 

 an analogy to all known organized ferments. 

 They have further shown that, when the pro- 

 cess has been suspended in this way for many 

 weeks, it can be renewed by the addition of a 

 small quantity of a nitrifying body. Again, the 

 temperature of boiling water suffices to destroy 

 all power of nitrification, and soil which has 

 been once heated to this point produces no 

 nitrates. If, however, this soil be moistened 



