566 



NATURE 



yApril 14, [881 



Prof. I. B. Balfour visited the island on behalf of our Zoological 

 Society. 



The April number of Ptkrinann' s Mittheilungen has a long 

 article, with map, on Mr. A. Forrest's expedition tlirough 

 North-West Australia in 1S79 ; Herr Clemens Denhardt con- 

 tinues his paper on Researches in Equatorial East Africa ; 

 Herr F. v. Stein gives details on the new French land fortifica- 

 tions, with map, and there are several interesting letters from 

 Dr. Junker, on his experiences in the Niam-Niam country. 



No. 2, for 1880, of the Bulletin of the American Geographical 

 Society contains an unusually interesting paper by Prof. J. B. 

 M'Master, of Princeton College, on the Bad Lands of Wyoming, 

 in which he endeavours to trace out their geological history ; 

 Mr. B. R. Curtis describes his journey round the world ; and 

 there is a historical article on Arctic Exploration by the Rev. 

 B. F. De Costa. 



The Bulldin of the Antwerp Geographical Society (tome v. 

 fasc. 6) contains a paper of considerable value by the Abbe van 

 den Gheyn, on the present state of research with regard to the 

 primitive cradle of the Aryan race. M. A. Baquet contributes a 

 paper on the fauna and the chace in the countries of South 

 America watered by the Paraguay and the Parana. 



CHEMICAL NOTES 



B. Heindl has recently made investigations into the com- 

 pounds of calcium chloride with ethyl alcohol, isobutyl alcohol, 

 and amyl alcohol, an 1 has obtained the following formulae : — 

 CaCU.3(C„HsO); CaCU . 3(C4Hi„0 ); and CaCl^. slCsHi^O). 

 In continuation of his investigation of the action of hydro- 

 chloric acid on metallic chlorides, already referred to in these 

 notes, M. Ditte describes several new compounds of this acid 

 with mercuric chloride, viz. , 



2HgCl„ . 4HCI . 7H„0 : sHgCl., . 4HCI . 7H2O : 

 2HgCl,* . HCl . 6H„0 : 4HgCl„ . 2HCI . gHjO : and 

 SHgCl" . HCl . 5H;o. 



MM. FouQufi AND LfiVY describe (in Co»iJ>t. rend.) the 

 artificial preparation of the basaltic minerals peridote and 

 labradorite, by prolonged heating of a homogeneous mixture 

 of the constituents of a basalt rich in olivine. 



Dr. a. R. Leeds has recently examined the action of nitrogen 

 tetroxide — N2O4 — on various hydrocarbons (Jtyitrn. of American 

 Chem. Soc). The results are interesting, and promise to be 

 even laore so. Benzene, when acted on by NoOj yields mono- 

 nitro-benzene, picric acid and oxalic acid ; two other compounds 

 were also obtained, but under conditions which have not been 

 successfully realised a second time. One of these the author calls 

 monoxy-benzene— CglljO — an isomer or metamer of quinone ; 

 the other has not been purified. Naphthalene yields mononitro- 

 naphthalene, o and ,8 dinitro-naphthalene, and two compounds 

 which, so far as they have been examined, appear to be naptho- 

 diquinone, CjnHjOj, and tetroxy-naphthalene, CiuHgOj. The 

 products of the action of nitrogen tetroxide on cymene are 

 chiefly a nitrocymene (probably also a dinitro derivative) and 

 paratoluic acid. 



The American Chem. Soc. Journal (vol. i. Nos. II and 12) 

 contains an interesting historical sketch of the lines of discovery 

 of ozone, and of peroxide of hydrogen, by Dr. A. R. Leeds; 

 to these papers is added a full list of references to all publica- 

 tions on ozone and hydrogen peroxide ; the ozone references 

 occupy thirty-two pages, and the hydrogen peroxide, ten pages. 



An important paper by M. Etard— important both by reason 

 of the results obtained ai.d because of the nature of the problem 

 attacked — on the oxidising action of chromyl dichloride, appears 

 in Annates Chim. el Fhys. for February. M. Etard has studied 

 the mechanism, so to speak, of the chemical changes which 

 occur when chromyl dichloride acts as an oxidiser ; he finds that 

 in the case of the hydrocarbons containing methyl groups at- 

 tached to an " aromatic " nucleus the methyl groups are trans- 

 formed into the aldehydic group (COH), and that when the 

 aromatic nuclei are themselves attacked, quinones are produced. 

 The chromyl dichloride forms compounds with the aromatic 

 hydrocarbons, which may be formulated as X . 2Cr02Cl.^ (where 

 X = hydrocarbon) : these compounds are then decomposed by 

 water, and yield the products already mentioned. 



In the same journal there is a lengthy and interesting paper 

 by M. W. Spring on the effects of great pressure on solid 

 bodies. It is shown in this paper — which is chiefly physical — 

 that the particles of crystalline bodies tend to solder themselves 

 closely together at high pressures, the effect of pressure being 

 analogous to that of fusion ; and that amorphous bodies may be 

 divided into two classes, viz. those which behave similarly with 

 crystalline bodies, and those v\ hich are not thus affected by high 

 pressures. 



The influence of pressure on chemical changes is also con- 

 sidered, and it is shown that as a general rule a chemical change 

 which results in the production of a system the volume of which is 

 less than the volume of the initial system, may be brought about 

 by subjecting the initial system to great pressure, but that if the 

 change involves an increase of volume, pressure alone does not 

 cause the change to proceed, 



M. Erame describes (in Compt. ««</.) experiments on animals 

 with pure hydrocyanic acid, the results of which seem to show 

 that the bodies of animals killed by this acid (pure) do not 

 undergo decomposition even when kept for a month; that the 

 acid remains during that time in the animal tissues, and notably 

 in the stomach, and that the acid is readily obtained by distilla- 

 tion from the tissues of a herbivorous, but much less readily from 

 those of a carnivorous animal. 



In continuing his researches on chemical affinity Herr Ostwald 

 (Journ. fiir preut. Chem.') has made the remarkable observation 

 tliat while the solvent action of polybasic acids on salts is 

 diminished by the presence of the normal salts of the acids 

 employed, the solvent action of monobasic acids is considerably 

 increased by the presence of the normal salts of these acids. In 

 his third paper Herr Ostw aid gives a large series of measure- 

 ments which show that the solvent action of free nitric or hydro- 

 chloric acid en calcium or zinc oxalate is increased by addition of 

 potassium, sodium, ammonium, or magnesium nitrate or chloride. 

 The solvent action increases proportionally to the increase in the 

 quantity of normal salt added. Ostwald confesses that he can 

 as yet give no thoroughly satisfactory explanation of this pheno- 

 menon ; the explanation which appears at present most probable 

 involves the assumption that there is a slight chemical action 

 between the normal salt (potassium nitrate, &c.) and the salt 

 which is being dissolved by the acid (calcium or zinc oxalate) : 

 this small chemical change alters the "stability" of the whole 

 system, and so increases the amount of the primary change, i.e. 

 solution of calcium oxalate, &c., in a given time. 



From thermochemical data J. Thomsen regards the generally 

 accepted formula for benzene as incorrect. The number obtained 

 by him for the heat of combustion of benzene (805,800 thermal 

 units) agrees fairly well with that calculated (800,400), on the 

 assumption that all the carbon atoms in benzene are " singly- 

 lirked." The heat of combustion of the metamer of benzene, 

 viz. dipropargyl, is, according to Berthelot, 853,600 units ; 

 Thomsen's caculations, assuming the formula 



HCshC— CHj— CHj— C=CH 

 to be correct, give the number 888,400, The formula above 

 given for oipiopargyl is therefore probably correct. 



I.\ the last number of the German Chemical Society's BericlUe 

 are published some recent observations on dipropargyl by Henry, 

 the discoverer of this curious compound. He describes, but not 

 yet in any detail, a solid polymer produced by the action of heat 

 on dipropargyl. He also describes the tetriooide C5H5I4, and 

 the octobromide C^HeBrg. 



The arguments in favour of the number 240 being adopted as 

 the atomic weight of uranium have been strengthened by the 

 preparation by C. Zimmermann (Berliner Berie/ite) of the normal 

 uranate of lithium, LijU04, analogous with the normal chro- 

 mates, tungstates, and molybdates. 



In the Chem. Soe. Jcurn. for March Dr. Ramsay continues 

 his investigations on atomic and molecular volumes ; he adduces 

 evidence in support of the number 7 as representing the 

 atomic volume of nitrogen ; [he generally-accepted number is 

 2-3. He aho shows that the molecular volumes of compounds 

 of the benzene, naphthalene, and anthracene series are smaller 

 than those calculated from the best established atomic volumes 

 of the constituent elements, and his numbers suggest that the 

 condensation in these compounds may very probably be propor- 

 tional to the number of carbon atoms in each u;olecule, and also 

 to the manner of •' linking " of these atoms. 



