TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 57 
in many cases to the flax itself. With respect to improvements in the flax-steeping 
process, there is really very little to report of late years. The ordinary open-air 
system is carried on in much the same way as when Louis Crommelin wrote in 1705. 
Various new plans have been suggested, and to some extent practised with more or 
less success. 
. The author described several of these new plans, and concluded by saying :—“ The 
time may arrive when a regular and extensive business may be taken up in all flax- 
growing districts by enterprising individuals with the object of buying the flax 
from the farmers in the green state, and treating it in an improved way on a large 
scale, combining probably the steeping of the flax and scutching-operations in the 
same establishment. Meantime let farmers who wish to make a profit in growing 
flax attend as carefully to the watering process as to the field cultivation, and avoid 
as a general rule the imperfect dew-rotting system, or the use of brackish water in 
any of the pools intended for steeping this valuable plant.”’ 
On the General Equations of Chemical Decomposition. 
By Professor Crirrorp, /.R.S. 
On the Composition of certain Kinds of Food. By W. J. Cooprr. 
On Spontaneous Generation from a Chemical Point of View. 
By Professor Drsus, F.R.S, 
On an Aspirator. By Professor Detrrs. 
On the Latent Heat of Liquefied Gases. By Dr. Dewar, F.R.S.E. 
On Chlorine, Hypochlorous Acid, gc., and Peroxide of Hydrogen. 
By Tuomas Farrtey, F.C.8. 
It is shown that under certain circumstances chlorine and hydrogen peroxide 
react so as to give hypochlorous acid: thus 
Cl,+H, 0,=2HCIO. 
A large excess of chlorine must be used, and the peroxide containing 2°45 per cent. 
added gradually to the chlorine-water. The posroxide is acted on, and the chromic- 
acid test does not show its presence in the mixture, On further addition of peroxide 
much gas is given off, which is pure oxygen. 
If we stop the addition of peroxide while there is still large excess of chlorine, 
and cautiously add ferrous sulphate solution to remove the excess, a bleaching 
liquid is obtained having the characteristic smell and properties of hypochlorous 
- acid. 
The evolution of oxygen arises from a secondary reaction of hypochlorous acid 
and hydrogen peroxide. 
HClO+H, 0,=HCl+H, 0+0,,. 
The oxygen is given off equally from the hypochlorous acid and the peroxide. 
Besides hypochlorous acid I have verified this equation with calcium, sodium, and 
potassium hypochlorites. Brodie has shown that a similar reaction takes place 
with barium peroxide and solution of bleaching-powder in acetic acid. The reaction 
of hypochlorous acid and peroxide of hydrogen explains the evolution of oxygen in 
continued addition of the peroxide to chlorine-water, or its immediate evolution on 
addition of chlorine-water to peroxide, 
1874, 5 
