| H, Wurtz’ Contributions to Analytical Chemistry. 371 
iSnothing more than an impure caustic soda, colored red with 
sub-oxyd of copper, and fused with an admixture of common 
salt, which serves to reduce its strength, and give it the aspect of 
the crude potash of this country. 
as yet important production of our country, and it was there 
fore a problem of no small importance for the industrial science 
of the future, to discover an economical and unfailing source of 
tash, € new process of Mr. Balard appears to fulfill the 
conditions required, and will, for the time to come, render the 
arts independent of the supplies derived from our forests. 
ee 
Arr, XXXII— Contributions to Analytical Chemistry ; by 
Henry Wurvz, of New York City. _ 
; Investigation of the action of nitric acid upon the metalhe chlorids. 
and followed shortly with another paper,* in which he showed 
that the chlorids of cpoiaalate and Fodiam are also Peps 
by the same treatment, and converted into nitrates. My frien 
SU Gibbs, remembering, although not perfectly it seems, my 
Am. Jour. Science for Nov. 1853, vol. xvi, p. 373. , 
