DISCOVEKY BY MEANS OF UNEXPLAINED PHENOMENA. 497 



discovery does great credit to his sagacity and analytical 

 skill. He is Inspector-General of the apothecaries for 

 the Kingdom of Hanover. While discharging the duties 

 of his office at Hildesheim, in the year 1817, he found 

 that the carbonate of zinc had been substituted for the 

 oxide of zinc, ordered in the Hanoverian Pharmacopoeia. 

 This carbonate of zinc was manufactured at Salzgitter. 

 On inquiry he learned from Mr. Jost, who managed that 

 manufactory, that they had been obliged to substitute the 

 carbonate for the oxide of zinc, because the oxide had a 

 yellow colour, which rendered it unsaleable. On examin- 

 ing this oxide Stromeyer found that it owed its yellow 

 colour to the presence of a small quantity of the oxide of 

 a new metal, which he separated, reduced, and examined, 

 and to which he gave the name of cadmium, because it 

 occurs usually associated with zinc. The quantity of cad- 

 mium which he was able to obtain from this oxide was 

 but small. A fortunate circumstance, however, supplied 

 him with an additional quantity, and enabled him to carry 

 his examination to a still greater length. During the 

 apothecaries' visitation in the State of Magdeburg there 

 was found in the possession of several apothecaries a 

 preparation of zinc from Silesia, made in Hermann's 

 laboratory at Schonebeck, which was confiscated, on the 

 supposition that it contained arsenic, because its solution 

 gave a yellow precipitate with sulphuretted hydrogen, 

 which was considered as orpiment. This statement could 

 not be indifferent to M. Hermann, as it affected the credit 

 of his manufactory ; especially as the medicinal counsellor, 

 Koloff, who had assisted at the visitation, had drawn up 

 a statement of the circumstances which occasioned the 

 confiscation, and caused it to be published in Hofeland's 

 * Medical Journal.' He subjected the suspected oxide to a 

 careful examination ; but he could not succeed in detect- 



