386 Miscellanies. 



thirds of whiskey do very well. This lamp may prove very useful in 

 mining districts, as a constant light that may be depended upon, if 

 the reservoir is periodically replenished. — Ibid. 



6. Anew metal discovered.- — M. Dulong read, on the 7tB of Feb- 

 ruary last, to the French Institute, a letter from Berzelius, which 

 announces the discovery of a new, simple substance by Mr. Sestrom, 

 director of the mines of Fahlun in Dalecarlia. Mr. Sestrom being 

 engaged in examining an iron, remarkable for its softness, discovered 

 in it a substance, which appeared to him to be new, but in such small 

 quantity, that he could not determine with accuracy all its properties. 

 Afterwards, however, he found it more abundantly in the scoriae of 

 the iron, and was thus enabled to prove that the substance in question 

 was a new metal, to which he gave the name of Vanadium, after an 

 ancient Scandinavian deity. We have had communicated to us the 

 following additional notice. Humboldt presented to the Institute spe- 

 cimens of vanadium, the new metal recently discovered in the iron of 

 Esterholm by Mr. Sestrom, and which also exists in Mexico, in a 

 brown ore of lead of Ziraapan. M. Del Rio, Professor in the school 

 of Mines, of Mexico, had extracted from that ore a substance, which, 

 to his apprehension, resembled a new metal, to w^hich he gave the 

 name of Erythronium. M. Collet Descolils, to whom he sent a 

 specimen, could not admit that erythronium is a single substance, and 

 believed he had demonstrated that it was an impure chrome. It 

 would appear that Prof. Del Rio agreed in this opinion^ and there 

 was no longer any idea of its being a new metal. But since the dis- 

 covery of Sestrom was known to Voller, he, struck with the resem- 

 blances which exist between the properties of Vanadium and that 

 which the Mexican chemi'st attributes to his erythronium, has repeat- 

 ed the analysis of the brown ore of lead of Zimapan, and from which 

 he has obtained a simple body perfectly identical with that of the iron 

 ore of d'Esterholra. It is worthy of remark that. so rare a metal 

 should have been discovered in two places so far asunder as Scandi- 

 navia and Mexico. — Ibid. 



MEDICAL CHEMISTE.Y. 



1. EJJicacy of Iodine. — Ateport was made to the French Acade- 

 my, on the od of January, 1831, by Dumeril and Magendie, on the 

 treatment of scrofulous diseases, by preparations of iodine, at the hos- 

 pital St. Louis, by M. Lugol. "The Academy has already been 

 informed by the report which we had the honor to make, with what 

 success M. Lugol treats those diseases. This success is such that a 



