384 Miscellanies. 
10. Crucible for fusion.—Persons who wish to melt or assay steel 
are not aware how easy it is to obtain, in the space of twenty min- 
utes, a melted mass of one or two ounces without the — difficulty 
by means of the following arrangement. 
“Make a hole in the bottom of a Hessian crucible holding two or 
three quarts,—put inside of this crucible the cover of a smaller cru- 
cible so that it may rest at about three fourths of the depth.» Make 
with a file several notches around this cover to admit the air freely, 
having the knob of the cover uppermost. On this knob place a little 
‘crucible containing the metal, which must be covered,—put’ some 
lighted charcoal around it, and then fill up with coke (or anthracite 
coal ?) so as to cover entirely the interior crucible. Connect this ap- 
paratus with a blacksmith’s or other bellows and keep up a constant 
blast, supplying the waste coal as it is consumed,—in the course of 
the time mentioned the steel will be melted. Other minerals, even 
some that are reputed infusible, will yield in like manner. ‘This sim- 
ple and cheap apparatus abridges time and labor surprisingly, and 
effects what with the common and costly furnaces easen?: be ‘impossi- 
— de Con. Usuelles, tom. 15,p.143. 0 sie 
“— Researches’ rélutioe to the azote formed in animal ubstances 5 
by MM: Macarre and Marcet.—These judicious chemists, 
remarking 
1 the influence of life in the transformations of alimen- 
tary materials—the importance of physiological investigations into 
the causes of the distinctions between vegetable and animal matter, 
and especially of well devised efforts to trace the origin of azote, or 
rather the causes of its greater abundance i in the animal than i in the 
Ps Sad. 
Ist. That ifs azote of animals is cootained ‘in the ood by wih 
Les are nourished. ee a 
2d. That it is drawn from the atmosphere i in respira ¢ he A 
8d. That animals have the property of eos A it, byt ans 
‘into azote o other elements subjected to etion of t 
se of their i inquiries they had occasion ‘ei = eae 
position of “ebyle. “As soon as extracted it was intr oduced mle 
eceiver of an air pump, placed on sand slightly 3 wart 5 fa boats 
vessel of strong sulphuric acid, and thus by pr ng the vacuum 
reduced to * penfenly dry gray powder. This was analyze 
means of the black oxide of copper with the following results. 
ef 
