400 Miscellanies. 



hematitic iron ; those of cobalt ten or twelve miles, and those of iron 

 about twenty miles. The iron ores are inexhaustible, and already two 

 forges are at work. Coal is close at hand, and the iron manufactured 

 is said to be of superior quality. 



5. An Intermittent Spring. — In a letter from Dr. E. G. Edeington of 

 Pittsburgh, we are informed of an intermittent spring nearly opposite 

 Pittsburgh, issuing from the bore of an abandoned^alt well. The water 

 at intervals of about three weeks, was thrown to a height of twenty or 

 thirty feet, accompanied with an issue of inflammable gas, to the accu- 

 mulation of which, the jet is attributed. This ejection would continue 

 for two or three hours, and then the water would sink below the surface. 

 While the pump was in operation, before abandoning the well, similar 

 jets were thrown out sometimes to the height of forty feet, whenever it 

 was worked after the repose of a day or two. The bore passes through 

 a bed of coal eighteen inches thick, at a depth of one hundred and 

 thirty three feet ; another of eleven feet, at one hundred and eighty feet ; 

 a third of four to four and a half, at two hundred and eighty feet; and 

 others of about the same thickness at three hundred and eighty, four 

 hundred and eighty, five hundred and forty, and five hundred and 

 eighty feet ; and one of nine inches, at six hundred and eighteen feet. 

 A thin stratum of limestone was found a short distance below each 

 stratum of coal, except the last. 



6. New Metals, Pelopium and Niobium, discovered by M. H. Rose, 

 (Abstracted from Comptes Rendus, Dec. 1844, T. xix, p. 1275.) — These 

 new metals were detected in the Columbite of Bavaria. The oxyd of 

 niobium much resembles columbic acid, and is called niobic acid. 

 Columbic acid when heated becomes slightly yellow, while niobic acid 

 takes a very deep yellow color ; both, however, become colorless on 

 cooling. Columbic acid, after calcination, is without lustre ; niobic acid 

 on the contrary has a high lustre like titanic acid when precipitated by 

 ammonia and calcined ; but it remains colorless, while titanic acid takes 

 a brownish color. The red cyanid of iron and potassium gives a white 

 flocculent precipitate with a solution of columbate of soda ; and a deep 

 yellow one with niobate of soda. If a plate of zinc be plunged into a 

 solution of columbate of soda, rendered acid, nothing takes place, ex- 

 cept after some time, when a white precipitate forms, which is colum- 

 bic acid ; in a solution of niobate of soda rendered acid by a little sul- 

 phuric or muriatic acid, the zinc produces a blue precipitate, which in 

 time passes to brown. 



The oxyd of pelopium resembles columbic acid ; but has not yet 

 been fully examined. 



