824 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Sir Humphry Davy as to the non-existence of oxygen in muriatic 

 acid, clinging to the statement of Lavoisier that all acids contain 

 oxygen, and he claims that combustion is accompanied by decom- 

 position of oxygen gas. The doctor's Analysis of Malachite from 

 Perkioming, Pa., is given as follows : One hundred and twenty 

 grains of the green carbonate contained carbonic acid, thirty 

 grains; quartz and siliceous earth, sixty-eight grains; brown 

 oxide of copper, fifteen grains ; loss, seven grains. The specimen 

 was evidently a poor one. No account was taken of the water, 

 and reporting results in percentages does not seem to have been 

 in vogue. 



The same writer, in Remarks on Putrefaction, discusses the 

 action of antiseptics and attributes the virtues of nitrate of pot- 

 ash to the increase of cold produced by the muriate of soda. His 

 other papers are argumentative and speculative, with little origi- 

 nality. 



Franklin Bache's three papers are likewise speculative disqui- 

 sitions. In one he points to the " great error " in which Berthollet 

 fell as respects the law of chemical affinity, and in another he 

 proposes to introduce the following improvements in nomencla- 

 ture : Nitral acid forming nitrotes ; nitril acid forming nitrutes ; 

 nitrous acid forming nitrites ; and nitric acid forming nitrates. 



Four of the papers in the Memoirs are by Dr. John Manners. 

 His Experiments and Observations on the Effect of Light on 

 Vegetables abounds in quotations from Darwin's Botanic Garden. 

 lu the Mineral Spring at Willow Grove, fourteen miles from 

 Philadelphia, he found iron and sulphureted hydrogen. In Ex- 

 periments and Observations on Putrefaction he tested the influ- 

 ence of carbonic acid, hydrogen, and other gases on putrefying 

 flesh, and he attempted to collect and analyze the gases generated 

 by the same. He concludes that " putrefaction depends on a de- 

 struction of the equilibrium of attractions which exists in the ele- 

 mentary principles of which the animal substance is composed in 

 a healthy state, occasioned by the loss* of vitality in consequence 

 of which new compositions and decompositions ensue." 



The president of the society, Prof. Cutbush, describes quite 

 clearly the " oxyacetite of iron " as a test for the detection of 

 arsenic, a process since used quantitatively by Kotschoubcy. 



Speculations on Lime, by Dr. Joel B. Sutherland, contains the 

 singular claim that if mortar be made with sand containing com- 

 mon salt the resultant compound gives " so much coldness to the 

 mass that during the whole summer vapor is almost incessantly 

 precipitated on a wall " with which it is plastered. 



Mr. Edward Brux, of France, one of the junior members, 

 writes Upon the Effects of Various Gases upon the Living Ani- 

 mal Body, which consists largely of speculations, notwithstand- 



