CHEMISTRY. (NEW SUBSTANCES.) 



153 



New Snbstanees. The panclastites is the name 

 of a new class of explosives to which M. Eu- 

 gene Turpin has directed attention, and with 

 which he has been experimenting since 1878. 

 They are formed hy the association of peroxide 

 of nitrogen or hyponitric acid (NO 4 ) with some 

 combustible base, and have properties varying 

 with the character of the base. They explode 

 with more force than either gun-cotton or ni- 

 tre-glycerine, but at the same time require a 

 much stronger shock to produce the explosion ; 

 so that they are safer to handle than even gun- 

 powder. Some of the compounds are unin- 

 flammable, while the others, more or less in- 

 flammable, will not explode by fire alone in an 

 open vessel, but burn quietly ; some of them 

 with so bright a flame that M. Turpin has 

 thought of using them in luminous telegraphy. 



A new explosive powder has been prepared 

 by Mr. J. D. Dougall, of St. James, England, 

 which is claimed to be superior for general use 

 in guns and artillery to any other. There are 

 claimed for it all the attributes of what " Iron " 

 styles the ideal powder, which briefly stated 

 are: capability of retaining its granular or 

 other form during much journeying either by 

 land or by sea ; uniformity in its rate of com- 

 bustion and in the development of its energy; 

 lively action, but not too much, on the gun 

 when discharged ; not corroding or injuriously 

 affecting the inner surface of the gun-barrel ; 

 leaving a minimum of residue ; power of resist- 

 ing damp. The ingredients may be fairly as- 

 sumed to be much the same as those employed 

 in the Schultze powder, the basis of which is 

 finely comminuted wood treated with an oxy- 

 genizing agent, but with additions, the char- 

 acter of which is at present kept secret. This 

 powder has been successfully deflagrated, after 

 having been immersed in water several days, 

 and dried. It is made of various qualities, suit- 

 able for sporting guns and military rifles, for 

 field artillery, for charging shells, and for min- 

 ing purposes. 



Mr. M. Carey Lea has observed in silver 

 chloride, bromide, and iodide, the property 

 of entering into chemical combination with 

 many coloring-matters much in the same way 

 that alumina does, though not to the same 

 extent, and of forming what may be called 

 lakes. It is only necessary to bring freshly 

 precipitated and still moist silver salt into con- 

 tact with coloring-matter, or to make the pre- 

 cipitation in the presence of the coloring-mat- 

 ter if the latter is not precipitated by silver 

 nitrate, when the combination takes place and 

 the coloring-matter can not be washed out. 

 Not all coloring-matters are capable of uniting 

 with the silver salts, but the number of those 

 that do so unite is considerable. The color 

 assumed by the silver salt is not always that 

 of the dye, but may differ from it considerably. 

 Also the three silver salts may be differently 

 colored by one and the same coloring-matter. 

 But more frequently coloring-matters impart 

 their own shade or something approaching to 



it. Different specimens of the same color also 

 gave sometimes quite different results. 



Nilson has succeeded in preparing pure me- 

 tallic thorium and in determining its properties. 

 The metal was obtained from potassium-tho- 

 rium-chloride by reducing it, at a moderate 

 red heat, in a tube of wrought-iron, with dry 

 sodium chloride. The reduction was completed 

 in fifteen minutes, after which the contents of 

 the tube, having been allowed to cool, were 

 treated with water, which left the reduced 

 thorium undissolved. It appeared as a shining 

 gray powder which under the microscope was 

 seen to consist of small, thin six-sided plates, 

 the larger ones of which had the luster of 

 nickel or silver and were, in some cases, aggre- 

 gated together. The crystals are brittle, and 

 in an agate mortar give a silver streak. The 

 metal is permanent in the air up to 100 or 

 102. Heated above that temperature, it ig- 

 nites even below redness, giving a brilliant 

 light and forming a snow-white oxide. Its 

 attraction for oxygen is very great, and it is 

 therefore extremely difficult of fusion. It 

 burns when heated in chlorine, bromine, and 

 iodine, but sulphur does not attack it at its 

 boiling-point; and it does not decompose water 

 at any temperature. Its specific gravity is cal- 

 culated at 10-9178. 



W. E. Hidden has identified a new mineral 

 which is found with salt, thenardite, tincal, etc., 

 at the works of the San Bernardino Borax 

 Company, in San Bernardino County, Cal. 

 It is an anhydrous sulphate-carbonate of so- 

 dium, and crystallizes in hexagonal crystals, 

 transparent to semi-opaque, with a white waxy 

 color inclining to yellow. Sometimes the crys- 

 tals are confusedly grouped as from a common 

 center, much like a certain variety of aragonite. 

 The density of the new mineral is 2*562, and 

 its hardness 8-f . It is readily soluble in water 

 and effervesces with acids. Mr. Hidden names 

 it Hanksite, after Prof. Henry G. Hanks, of 

 California, in whose collection it first attracted 

 notice. 



Eobert Sachsse isolates three coloring-mat- 

 ters from chlorophyl, which differ from one 

 another in composition and in the degree of 

 their solubility in alcohol. The one which is 

 nearly insoluble in alcohol he calls a-pha3ochlo- 

 rophyl; that which is sparingly soluble, /3- 

 phseochlorophyl ; and the third, which is easi- 

 ly soluble in alcohol, y phseochlorophyl. /3- 

 pha3ochlorophyl, when dry, appears nearly 

 black. It is insoluble in water, but soluble in 

 hot alcohol, from which it separates on cool- 

 ing, in the shape of an amorphous precipitate. 

 The formula of its composition is dnHssNsO^ 



Sorabje" has, by means of Wurtz's reaction of 

 treating the iodide of a radical with sodium, 

 prepared some of the higher members of the 



EaraflBne series hitherto unknown. By adding 

 nely divided sodium to cetyl iodide dissolved 

 in six times its weight of ether, he obtained 

 glistening crystals of dicetyl, which after re- 

 crystallization fused at 70 and distilled with- 



