123 



Reflecting, however, upon the various modifications which sub- 

 stances undergo when in union with each other, and on the varia- 

 tions produced in the laws of affinity by the intervention of new 

 bodies, he was induced to try whether, by the affinity of platina with 

 some other metal easily reduced, and the interference of an interme- 

 diate agent, a reduction of both metals might not be brought about, 

 although no such efFect could be produced upon each metal when 

 separate. Mercury was thought the most likely to succeed, as being 

 the most reducible ; and the intermediate agent adopted was green 

 sulphate of iron. A solution of this sulphate was poured into a salt 

 of platina, and also into a salt of mercury ; in neither of which any 

 precipitate took place. The two liquors were then united, and a 

 precipitate, exactly resembling that which is formed by green sul- 

 phate of iron in palladium, was instantly formed. This precipitate 

 was collected and exposed to a strong heat, and a metallic substance 

 was obtained, not to be anyways distinguished from palladium. 



Thus, after having been baffled in his attempts to discover, by 

 analysis, the component parts of this substance, which he could never 

 bring himself to consider as a new metal, a synthetic process at length 

 led him to the discovery, that the whole pretence was an imposition, 

 and that the substance is, in fact, a combination of platina and mer- 

 cury ; in which the latter, while it marks the most characteristic pro- 

 perties of the former, loses the greater number of its own distinctive 

 qualities. 



The singular fact, that an alloy of two metals should be produced, 

 the specific gravity of which is little more than one half of what it 

 ought to be by calculation, is, no doubt, worthy of particular atten- 

 tion ; and as quicksilver was in this process brought to a fixed state 

 under circumstances never before observed, a notion might be enter- 

 tained that the great desideratum in alchemy, the fixation of mercury, 

 was by no means a visionary object. This anomaly of the true and 

 the calculated specific gravities of alloys has been attended to with 

 great caution ; and we find the results of the inquiry collected in a 

 table, in which are entered the true and the calculated specific gra- 

 vities of palladium with seven different metals ; and the differences 

 are stated, which vary much more considerably than might have been 

 expected, both in excess and defect, the number representing this 

 difference in the combination with platina being +2' 100, and with 

 tin 1-1G5. 



Those who cultivate chemistry with any degree of ardour, will be 

 gratified to see in this paper the pains taken by the author, and the 

 various modes he has devised, to produce this compound metal in its 

 most perfect state of combination. Among various other results, it 

 appears that the specific gravities of the alloys vary according to the 

 proportions of the two ingredients in the following manner : 



Spec. grav. Spec. grav. Spec. grav. 



Platina 611 / 70 \n-249 / 81 \ 1^141 



Mercury 39 / H 736 \ 30 / ll ^t^J 



Should this alloy ever be found useful in the arts, or for ceconomi- 



