e 
404 Correspondence of J. Nickles. 
the arrangements here adopted are peculiar to this inventor and attain 
perfectly the end propose 
The Commission has decreed three other prizes of less importance. 
As usual the Commission in Medicine and Surgery has been just and 
enerous in its prizes. It has not confined its attention to medical and 
7 a works, but has given prizes as in the last year, even to re- 
rches in chemistry and physics where they have some relations to 
Bedi science. prize was thus itpahostet 0 upon Dr. Hannover of 
Copenhagen for his work on the Eye; another to Dr. Lehmann of 
Saxony for his Treatise on Physiological Chotnietry’ published in Ger- 
man at Leipsic, and which has just been oe disfigured by a 
si a edition that has of the work only its 
nium and Silicitum.—M. Wohler at M. Deville have both de- 
aed processes for obtaining pure silicium. ohler uses fluo- 
silicate of potash, 3K FI+-2Si FS in excess, which he fuses with the 
aluminium in a Hessian crucible. After cooling, the mass is found to 
contain a crystalline material, an alloy of silicium and aluminium, be- 
fore observed by Deville, which pian treating with chlorivarie acid 
deposits silicium in a graphite-like s 
eville’s process affords the reese in a crystalline state. It con- 
sists in heating the aluminium in a porcelain tube traversed by a cur- 
rent of hydrogen saturated with vapor of chlorid of silicium: the treat- 
ment is continued until there is no disengagement of vapors of chlorid 
of aluminium. The crystallized silicium contains some impurities 
which are removed on treating it successively with nitro-muriatic acid, 
boiling fluohydric acid, and melted bisulphate of soda. As long as 
the operation is not complete, there are found small globules of said 
of aluminium, Si he fluorid of oie een used in place of the 
chlorid would: cd - furnish silicium; at the 
pound of fluorid of aluminium, FI IS Al2, is ripe ecyaatinibe in fine 
cubes and unattacked by almost all reagents. 
Silicium crystallizes in octahedrons and tetrahedrons, and conforms 
therefore to the rule which [ established in 1851,* that simple bodies 
crystallize generally either in the monometric or rhombohedral system. 
the same process, ripest has prepared crystallized boron as well 
as crystallized carbon with a hexagonal base, zirconium, and titanium. . 
We will recur to the subject at another time, and then describe the new 
apparatus, such as tubes of carbon, &c., used in these operations, as 
executed at the Normal School, which institution, has, through the Uni- 
versity, extended means of research. 
Artesian wells.—An artesian well is in progress in the Bois de Bou- 
Jogne a meter in diameter, and capable of supplying 10,000 cubic me- 
ters of water per day. The engineer who has it in charge, M. Kind, 
has so perfected the process, that he offers to go to a depth of 720 
meters, and even to descend to a depth of 2000 meters. The boring was 
commenced on the 2nd of August with a diameter of 1:2 meters. 
scending through marl and soft sandstone, the rate was five meters i 
ae ; in a bed of sand it was two to three meters; by the Ist of May 
he depth will reach 700 meters. 
* Comptes Rend., xxii, 853. 
