384 Miscellanies. 



10. Crucible for fusion. — Persons who wish to melt or assay steel 

 are not aware how easy it is to obtain, in the space of twenty min- 

 utes, a melted mass of one or two ounces without the least difficulty 

 by means of the following arrangement. 



Make a hole in the bottom of a Hessian crucible holding two or 

 three quarts, — put inside of this crucible the cover of a smaller cru- 

 cible so that it may rest at about three fourths of the depth. Make 

 with a file several notches around this cover to admit the air freely, 

 having the knob of the cover uppermost. On this knob place a little 

 crucible containing the metal, which must be covered, — put some 

 lighted charcoal around it, and then fill up with coke (or anthracite 

 coal ?) so as to cover entirely the interior crucible. Connect this ap- 

 paratus with a blacksmith's or other bellows and keep up a constant 

 blast, supplying the waste coal as it is consumed, — in the course of 

 the time mentioned the steel will be melted. Other minerals, even 

 some that are reputed infusible, will yield in like manner. This sim- 

 ple and cheap apparatus abridges time and labor surprisingly, and 

 effects what with the common and costly furnaces would be impossi- 

 ble. — Jour.de Con. UsueUes,tom.. 15, p. 143. 



11. Researches relative to the azote formed in animal substances ; 

 by MM. Macaire and Marcet. — These judicious chemists, after 

 remarking upon the influence of life in the transformations of alimen- 

 tary materials — the importance of physiological investigations into 

 the causes of the distinctions between vegetable and animal matter, 

 and especially of well devised efforts to trace the origin of azote, or 

 rather the causes of its greater abundance in the animal than in the 

 vegetable system, proceed to remark that the fact may be accounted 

 for on three assumptions. 



1st. That the azote of animals is contained in the food by which 

 they are nourished. 



2d. That it is drawn from the atmosphere in respiration, or, 



3d. That animals have the property of creating it, by transform- 

 ing into azote other elements subjected to the action of the vital 

 forces. 



In the course of their inquiries they had occasion to examine the 

 composition of chyle. As soon as extracted it was introduced into 

 the receiver of an air pump, placed on sand slightly warmed near a 

 vessel of strong sulphuric acid, and thus by prolonging the vacuum, 

 reduced to a perfectly dry gray powder. This was analyzed by 

 means of the black oxide of copper with the following results. 



