BY A. LEIBIUS, PH. D. 215 



lungs strongly, and excite a burning pain in the eyes. To give you 

 a faint idea of its smell, I produce here a very dilute solution of 

 osmic acid, by decomposing a solution of osmate of potash with 

 Hydrochloric acid. The smell thus produced, is not at all danger- 

 ous. Osmic acid is reduced by the alcohol flame ; if therefore a 

 granule of osmium be placed on the edge of a piece of platinum 

 foil, and held in the flame of a spirit lamp in such a manner as 

 to allow part of the flame to rise freely into the air, this part 

 becomes brightly luminous, because the osmic acid formed by 

 the combustion of osmium mounts upwards, and is again reduced 

 by the flame to metallic osmium, which thus mixes with the 

 flame as a finely divided solid body, and thereby increases the 

 luminosity. 



Osmic acid attacks the skin and every organic substance. 



Osmium and its compounds have at present only a scientific 

 interest. It was my intention to prepare an extensive series of 

 Iridium and Osmium compounds to lay before this Meeting, but 

 I must defer doing so till I am enabled to work upon a larger 

 scale than I have done hitherto, and for which purpose I require 

 several chemicals and apparatus, which cannot be procured in this 

 Colony. 



On the Prospects of the Civil Service under the Superannuation 

 Act of 1864, 



By LIEUTENANT-COLONEL WARD. 



[Read December 7th, 1864.] 



I SUBMIT, in this paper, the conclusions at which I have arrived 

 after examining, as a Commissioner appointed under the Act, the 

 financial provisions of the Superannuation Act of 1864. 



The sum paid, either as a single or annual premium, for an 

 annuity to commence at a certain age not yet attained, and to 

 continue during the remainder of a life, should be sufficient, if 

 invested at compound interest at the current rate, to produce at 

 the death of the annuitant (if his life has been of average 



