Scientific Intelligence. 109 
thick, may be cut in two by mercury, after ten minutes of con- 
tact, and a plate half a millimeter thick, yields instantaneously, 
On amalgamating a strip of brass, it may, after a few minutes, be 
reduced to fragments between the thumb and finger. A plate of 
four millimeters required ten minutes to cut it in two. An alloy, 
formed of equal parts of antimony and tin, did not appear to be 
impressed by the mercury. Chaudet’s alloy (3 or 4 per cent. of 
antimony, and 96 to 97 of tin) very elastic in its pure state, 
amalgamates instantly, and is easily cut off. 
It is here seen that if the permeability of brass and copper 
for mercury is not established by the process, based on captllarity, 
followed by Prof. Horsford, we may still make this property evi- 
dent by an inverse course, that is, by inducing infiltration. 
above are well established; for I have been accustomed to use 
this Process for dividing plates of zinc or sheets of brass, in my 
°xperiments on electro-magnetism. 
a ee 
SCIENTIFIC INTELLIGENCE. 
I. CorrEsPoNDENCE. 
Correspondence of M. J. Nickles, dated Paris, September, 1852. 
ila was but little done at the Academy. of Sciences during 
month of August. Vacancies occurred; and the academic chairs 
vacated were filled by the election of several illustrious foreigners, 
Pluck? whom are MM. Mitscherlich, Gustaf and Heinrich Rose, and 
icker, 
te have been read before the Society, this month; two memoirs 
vs General Physics,—one of them on molecular physics, the other on 
Telation of specific heat to atoms. : : ; 
researches in Molecular Physics—The principal fact of interest in 
dj first, is a new case of isomerism, which its author, M. Pasteur, has 
Scovered, and which facts previously known could not have suggested. 
Hew light on the mechanical rtment of chemical combinations. — 
of i. eur had previously established the principle that the direction 
ee fotatory molecular action of solutions depended on the hemi- 
rism, and to the left, left-handed. Further, that one and the 
>. ance may furnish examples of both of these characters, or 
.. ei words, that two substances, one right- and the other left-handed, 
oe differ only in crystallographic and rotatory peculiarities, being in 
“tY other respect identical. 
