Miscellanies. 401 



acid, another substance may be formed to explain the loss in oxide 

 of carbon. An experiment to ascertain this, shewed me that the 

 water, abandoned by the oxalic acid, was acid, and that it contained 

 formic acid. This appeared at first in small quantity, because it is 

 disguised in much water, but it distills more and more concentrated, 

 and towards the end of the operation, when the oxalic acid is dry, it 

 has a very penetrating and sharp taste. Agreeably to the proportion 

 found of 6 vols, carbonic acid to 5 vols, of oxide of carbon, sup- 

 posing that the volume wanting of the latter gas has concurred with 

 the water to the production of formic acid, we find that for 12 pro- 

 portions of oxalic acid there will be formed one of formic acid. 

 This theoretic result appears to me to be in accordance with the ex- 

 periment ; but I have not directly assured myself of its truth. It 

 is incontestable that the hydrogen is supplied by the water to the 

 formic acid and not by the oxalic acid, for the carbonic acid and ox- 

 ide of carbon must be produced in equal volumes. It is besides a 

 necessary consequence of the well known nature of oxalic acid as 

 ascertained by the experiments of Dulong and Dobereiner. I ought 

 to remark, that if the decomposition is not urged too hastily, all the 

 oxalic acid is destroyed, no sensible portion being volatilized. 



These observations appear to me to render it absolutely necessary, 

 that we should no longer separate oxalic acid from the two other 

 combinations of oxygen and carbon. It may be ranked among the 

 acids whose radicals have two equivalents, and its proper name would 

 then be the hypo-carbonic acid, analogous to the hypo-sulphuric, hy- 

 po-sulphurous acids, &ic., but it will be better perhaps to defer this 

 change in the nomenclature to some future time. — .^7in de Chim. et 

 de Phys. Fev. 1831. 



25. On some phenomena of Magnetization. — (Extract of a let- 

 ter from M. De Nairac to Prof. De La Rive.) — I placed in a 

 line, end to end, two bars of soft iron ab, cd, each about two and a 

 half feet long, one inch wide and one half inch thich. At the out- 

 ward extremity of each bar I placed two small magnetic needles i, k, 

 turning on a pivot. 



Along side and near the bars I placed two compound magnets 

 e,y*, and ^, A, each, including the armature, nineteen inches long 

 and capable when united at their poles, of sustaining from thirty to 

 forty pounds. 



Vol. XXVII.— No. 2. .51 



