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442 Miscellaneous Intelligence. 



sulphur, disengages a sensible quantity of sulphurous acid. To as- 

 sure himself of the presence of the latter, the operator has only to 

 hold over the liquid a strip of paper which has been covered with 

 ^iodid of potassium paste, and tinged slightly blue by exposure to chlo- 

 rine. The liberated sulphurous acid will soon dissipate this blue color. 

 Selenium and phosphorus are oxydized in the same manner at low 

 temperatures in the acid mixture in question ; and this latter is modified 

 to such an extent, that, on the addition of water, an abundant disen- 

 gagement of deutoxyd of nitrogen gas takes place. 



Iodine even, in the state of powder and shaken up with the acid 

 mixture, rapidly absorbs oxygen, when exposed to a low temperature; 

 and there is formed, besides iodic acid, the compounds to which Millon 

 has lately drawn attention. After the reaction, a liquid remains, 

 which, diluted with water, gives an abundant disengagement of deu- 

 toxyd of nitrogen and liberates iodine. 



My experiments on ozone having shown that this body, which I con- 

 sider to be a distinct peroxyd of hydrogen, forms, as well as chlorine 

 at the ordinary temperature, a peculiar compound with olefiant gas 

 without apparently oxydizing in the least either the hydrogen or the 

 carbon of this gas, I had the idea that it would not be impossible that 

 certain organic matters, exposed to a low temperature, would likewise 

 form compounds, either with the peroxyd of hydrogen alone, which, 

 on my hypothesis, occurs in a state of combination or of mixture in the 

 acid mixture, or with N0 4 . It was this conjecture, doubtless very sin- 

 gular in the eyes of chemists, which principally led me to commence 

 experiments with common sugar. 



I made a mixture of one part (volume) of nitric acid, of 1-5 spec, 

 grav., and two parts of sulphuric acid of 1-85, at the temperature of 

 36° F. ; I then added some finely powdered sugar, so as to form a 

 very fluid paste. I stirred the whole, and, at the end of a few minutes, 

 the saccharine substance formed itself into a viscous mass entirely sep- 

 arated from the acid liquid, without any disengagement of gas. This 

 pasty mass was washed with boiling water, until this last no longer ex- 

 ercised any acid reaction ; after which I deprived it, as much as possi- 

 ble, at a low temperature, of the water it still contained. The sub- 

 stance now possessed the following properties :— Exposed to a low tem- 

 perature, it is compact and brittle; at a moderate temperature, it may 

 be moulded like jalap resin, which gives it a beautiful silky lustre. It 

 is semi-fluid at the temperature of boiling water; at a higher tempera- 

 ture, it gives off red vapors; heated still more, it suddenly deflagrates 

 with violence, without leaving any perceptible residue. It is almost 

 msipid and colorless, transparent, like the resins, almost insoluble m 

 water, but easily soluble in the essential oils, in ether and concentrated 

 nitric acid, and in most cases it acts in general like the resins in a chem- 

 ical and physical point of view : thus friction renders it very electro- 

 negative. I will add, that the acid mixture, by means of which this 

 resinous body was obtained, has an extremely marked bitter taste. 



I wished to make experiments also with other organic substances; 

 and I soon discovered, one after another, all those about which there 



\u ^ en S ° much ^ of late > especially in the Academy of ran* 

 All this passed in December, 1845, and the first few months in iw- 



