A416 Scientific Intelligence. 
camphors from which the two species of camphoric acid are derived, 
have also the same solubility, the same point of fusion and of volatiliza- 
tion, and the same power of rotation though in opposite directions. (It 
is not stated whether they unite to form a third and inactive camphor.) 
Pasteur has confirmed these results of Chautard.—Comptes Rendus, 
xxxvil, 166. 
10. On the Color of the Salts of Manganese.—Goneev has at length 
settled the much disputed question of the cause of the pink color of the 
salts of the manganese, by proving that pure salts of protoxyd of man- 
ganese have always this color, and that the so-called colorless salts of 
of the salts of other metals having the complementary green color. By 
boiling a solution of manganese with freshly precipitated and washed 
nickel or copper: 
nickel is about y¢%5q of the quantity of manganese ; iron must be added 
less solution, but in this last case, the solution in mass has a faint violet 
hue. The insoluble salts of manganese are white in powder, but rose- 
red when crystalline.— Comptes Rendus, xxxvi, 861. W. G. 
tl. Note to Dr. Smith’s paper on the Decomposition of Chlorids by 
two I believe before Mr. Wurtz studied the subject. The alkaline 
nitrates are easily converted into chlorids, by boiling them with an ex- 
cess of chlorhydric acid, in presence of any metallic oxyd having a 
strong affinity of oxygen. | employ the protochlorid of tin for this pur- 
pose, and when the reaction is over, and gas (nitrous oxyd) is no longer 
evolved, a current of sulphydric acid gas removes the tin, and the filtrate 
contains only the alkaline chlorid and free chlorhydrie acid.—w. &. 
12. On the Chemical Action of the Solar Radiations ; by Mr. R. 
Hunt, (Proc. Brit. Assoc., 1853, Athen., 1100.)—This was a report 
to the section of the continuation of an examination of the chemical 
action of the rays of the prismatic spectrum, after it had been subjected 
to the absorptive influences of different colored media. em 
examination adopted has been to obtain well-defined spectra of a beam 
of light passing through a fine vertical slit in a steel oat by prisms of 
flint and crown glass and of quartz. The spectrum being concentrated 
