384 I. I. Hayes on the Passage to the North Pole. 
time, the washings constantly affording a slight chlorine reac- 
tion, due to the presence of a difficultly soluble subchlorid or 
oxychlorid. On dissolving this washed substance in nitric acid, 
traces only of chlorine appeared in the solution; but on dissoly- 
ing it in chlorohydric acid, a considerable indication of nitric 
acid was obtained by the indigo test. It would seem therefore 
that the above reaction of Vogel is not carried out with pre- 
cision. It may be useful to call to mind here that according to 
Berzelius and H. Rose,* both antimonious and antimonic acids 
are perfectly insoluble in nitric acid. 
28. Bismuth—According to Jacquelain,+ the oxychlorid of - ‘gt 
bismuth, BiCl*, 2BiO?, “dissolves in hot nitric acid, and on 
evaporation remains behind unchanged.” Nitric acid, boiled 
and evaporated with terchlorid of bismuth, left a residue from 
which water dissolved little chlorine but abundance of nitric 
acid, while the insoluble portion dissolved readily in nitric acid, 
and contained abundance of chlorine. 
(Zo be continued.) 
Arr. XXXIIL—The Passage to the North Pole; by 
Dr. I. I. Haves. 
My attention has been directed to an article in the January 
number of the Journal of Science, upon “The Open North Polar 
Sea, by R. W. Haskins, A.M.” A farther discussion of ge 
subject may perhaps not prove uninteresting to the readers 0 
that ably written and comprehensive synopsis of the author's Te _ 
searches among the old records, and I propose to consider ve. : 
probable value of the evidence which Mr. Haskins has ia ee 
orward, of navigators having reached to a high northern late 
ar Sea and of 
exist for the 
ude, as bearing upon the question of an open Pol 
Arctic navigation, and to show the reasons which 
belief in the practicability of reaching the North Pole.. “4 as 
_ Mr. Haskins has, as he informs us, drawn largely from K 
material collected by the Hon. Daines Barrington. This gentle 
man was a lawyer, naturalist and antiquary, of some dich TT 
He read two papers before the Royal Society upon the su oo 
of arctic navigation, and also collected and prepared ich 
ber of papers and letters upon the same topic; all of W a 
were gpd to the same E ociety, and were collectively pe 
lished by their author in 1776, and again by ali 
1818. The little volume was entitled, “The practicability. ae 
reaching the North Pole asserted;” the object in view ung * 
_ * Gm. Handbuch, ii, 791. + Ibid., ii, 856. 
“ik 
