Discovery of Columbite in Chesterfield, Mass. 223 



1. Prussiate of potash. No change. 



2. Gallic acid. An orange red color, without a precipitate. 



3. Solution of nut galls. The same. 



4. Sulphuric acid, \ 



5 Nitric acid, / ^ ^-^^ ^^-^^ precipitate. 



6. Muriatic acid, ^ r r 



7. Hydriodic acid.) 



8. Phosphoric acid, ) 



9. Chromic acid, > A milk white cloudiness. 



10. Acetic acid. ) 



11. Arsenic acid, \ 



12. Oxalic acid, / nyr , 



.„ rp . • ', > No change. 



13. lartaric acid, f ° 



14. Tartrate of potash. 3 



15. Nitrate of lead, ) A copious, milkwhite precipitate, 



16. Nitrate of silver. ) not re-dissolved by nitric acid. 



If any one will be at the trouble of comparing these vari- 

 ous results, with those obtained by Mr. Hatchett, in his ori- 

 ginal memoir upon columbium,* or with those of Dr. Thom- 

 son, in his attempt to ascertain the atomic weight of colum- 

 bic acid,t he can entertain no doubt that the substance just 

 examined, was the columbate of soda. 



I now introduced about ten grains of the columbic acid, 

 into a small gimblet hole, made in a very compact piece of 

 charcoal, stopping the orifice by means of a plug of the same 

 substance. The charcoal was surrounded by sand in a covered 

 Wedgewood crucible, and subjected to the heat of a powerful 

 forge for one hour. On the cooling of the crucible, the colum- 

 bic acid was found to be completely reduced into a porous, 

 firmly cohering, metallic mass, of an iron grey color; and oc- 

 cupying nearly the same bulk as before its reduction. It was 

 with difficultly impressible by the knife, and when recently 

 scraped, showed a feeble metallic lustre. Specific gravity, 

 5*57). It was brittle, and reducible to powder under the 

 pestle. A portion of the powder was boiled for one hour in 

 nitro-muriatic acid, without being made to undergo any 

 change ; but when fused along with potash, it afforded a so- 

 lution in water, from which the strong acids threw down the 

 previously obtained white precipitate. Thus there appears 

 to remain no doubt of the identity of the metal here obtain- 

 ed and the columbium. 



* Phil. Trans, for 1802, p. 49. 



t First Principles of Chemistry, Vol. II. p. 77. 



