340 On the Crystallization of Platinum. 
Arr. XXX,— ‘On the Crystallization % Platinum from Fusion ; 
by J. W. Maurer, Ph.D. 
Havine recently prepared some bichlorid of platinum as a re- 
agent»by dissolving scraps of platinum foil, wire, etc., in nitro- 
muriatic acid, I poured off the yet strongly acid solution before the 
whole of the metal had disappeared, and washed and dried the re- 
maining scraps. Among them there were five or six small beads of 
platinum which had been melted off from the end of a wire (of 
about th inch in diameter) by the oxyhydrogen blowpipe flame. 
I was surprised to observe that these globules, which were spheri- 
eal and quite smooth and brilliant before the acid had acted upon 
them, afterwards presented distinct traces of crystallization, re- 
sembling to the eye the little polyenes! beads of phosphate of 
lead which are obtained by fusing that salt before the blowpipe. 
Some of the ease faces were plane or nearly so, but most. of 
them were slightly rounded like ,those of many crystals of dia- 
mo hey presented for the most part the peculiar lustre of 
a metal with - —" striz on the surface, but some of the 
facets were brillia 
The prevailing he seemed to be the tetrakis-hexahedron, of 
which there was one very distinct example, and beside this, faces 
of the octahedron and perhaps of the cube with truncated angles— 
combinations of the cube with the octahedron—were recognisable 
on other beads. 
Some of the globules were apparently groups of minute crys- _ 
tals, while one or two seemed to be distinct individuals. e 
The weight of the largest was not more than grm 
The crystalline faces were no doubt fe | visible by the 
dissecting action of the acid in the same way that the structure 
of a lump of alum may, as is well known, be brought out by 
partial solution in water—the chemically homogeneous mass 
offering at different points a greater or less resistance to the sol- 
vent, dependant upon the positions of these points with reference 
to the crystalline axes, just as the actual hardness of resistance 
offered to mechanical abrasiens differs at different parts of the sur- 
face of a crysta 
The asstimption of distinct crystalline structure by platinum 
under the circumstances mentioned, is remarkable from the ex- 
tremely high melting point of the metal, thes anal aged ee 
in each bead, and therefore the very short tim 
must have passed from the liquid to the solid oteaee 
