872 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. V. No. 127. 



now pass through him without his knowing 

 anything about them. 



Such studies ought, indeed, to be the 

 foundation of the science of man, involving, 

 as they do, the recognition of his limitations 

 and also his incalculable capacities. It 

 is foolish for scientific men to reject or neg- 

 lect them on the ground that they are 

 ' visionary ' or ' spiritualistic' What we 

 want is to pursue knowledge in every di- 

 rection, and to its limits, if we can. 



D. G. Bbinton. 



XJniveesity of Pennsylvania. 



NOTES ON INORGANIC CHEMISTRY. 



In many of the acids, especially of the 

 less strongly negative elements, the oxygen 

 may be replaced in whole or in part by 

 fluorin, a pair of fluorin atoms taking the 

 place of each oxygen atom. This is true of 

 the borates in the third group, aU the acids 

 of the fourth group except the carbonates, 

 the vanadinates, columbates, tantalates, 

 arsenates and antimonates in the fifth 

 group, the chromates, molybdates, tungs- 

 tates and uranates in the sixth. Attempts 

 have been made by Weinland and Lauen- 

 stein to enlarge this list and their results 

 are given in a recent Beriehte. 



By the action of hydrofluoric acid on the 

 iodates, difluoriodates were formed, of the 

 formula KIO,F„ NalO.F, and ISTHJO.F,. 

 These salts are comparatively stable when 

 dry, but are decomposed readily by moisture. 

 Efforts to form fluo-per iodates, fluo-manga- 

 nates and fluo-tellurates have thus far been 

 unsuccessful. 



The ordinary cadmium sulfate crystallizes 

 with 8/3 HjO, while the sulfates of magne- 

 sium, zinc, iron, nickel, cobalt and manga- 

 nese contain seven molecules of water of 

 crystallization. Cadmium sulfate, how- 

 ever, forms double sulfates isomorphous 

 with the double sulfates of the others. 

 Mylius and Funk have just succeeded in 

 obtaining a cadmium sulfate with the nor- 



mal amount of water. A solution of the 

 salt, saturated at 70° is suddenly cooled 

 to — 20°, and by agitation a cryohydrate 

 crystallizes out. When the temperature is 

 then allowed to slowly rise, the cryohydrate 

 melts, but leaves a granular deposit of 

 crystals sometimes several millimeters in 

 length, of CdSO^, TH^O, cadmium-vitriol. 

 The crystals are, however, very unstable. 



The same Beriehte contains two additional 

 papers by Professor Soderbaum, of Gothen- 

 burg, on the acetylid of copper. It was re- 

 cently mentioned in this column that he 

 had formed a complex compound by the ac- 

 tion of acetylene on an ammoniacal solution 

 of copper sulfate. He now shows that by 

 carrying on the action in quite dilute solu- 

 tions in the cold, the precipitate contains 

 two atoms of carbon for every atom of cop- 

 per, and he takes as its formula C^^CUj^, H^ 

 O. The substance is similar to the one 

 formerly described as obtained in a hot so- 

 lution, but is rather more explosive, and 

 the humus-like compound formed by its 

 treatment with acids is richer in carbon. 

 Professor Soderbaum proposes this method 

 for the quantitative estimation of copper, as 

 well as its quantitative separation from zinc. 



A NEW element, Bythium, is announced 

 in the Eleetrochemische Zeitschrift by Theodor 

 Gross. A fused mixture of silver sulfid 

 and silver chlorid is electrolyzed in a nitro- 

 gen atmosphere, using platinum electrodes 

 free from iridium. In the melt is found a 

 dark gray powder, insoluble in aqua regia 

 and in ammonia. Fused with alkaline car- 

 bonate it gives a melt soluble in hydro- 

 chloric acid, from which hydrogen sulfid 

 gives a brown precipitate. The yield of the 

 new substance is 5% of the original sulfur 

 used. From the fact that there is a corre- 

 sponding loss of sulfur, the author considers 

 that this bythium is formed by the decom- 

 position of sulfur, though he admits that 

 since there is a small (3%) loss of chlorin 



