ANNALS 



OF THE 



MW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 



VOLUME I. 



[Being a Continuation of the Annals of the Lyceum 

 of Xatural History.] 



J. — Application of Organic Acids to the Examination of Minerals. 



(With Plate I.) 



By H. CARRINGTON BOLTON", Ph. D. 



Read April 30th, 1877. 



1. The organic acids have loog been used in various opera- 

 tions of chemical analysis, but their direct application to the 

 decomposition of minerals, with a view to the determination 

 of the latter, appears to have been overlooked. Acetic acid 

 finds frequent employment in quantitative analysis; tartaric 

 and citric acids are used to hold ferric and aluminic hydrates 

 in solution in the presence of alkalies, to dissolve antimonic 

 oxide in mineral analysis and in blow-pipe tube reactions,* 

 and in the preparation of Fehling's copper solution ; ammonium 

 citrate is used to dissolve so-called "reverted" calcium phos- 

 phate, and to separate lead sulphate from the sulphates of the 

 alkaline earths; oxalic acid is used to dissolve sulphide of tin 

 in the separation of this metal from antimony,t in volumetric 

 analysis, in the determination of the metals of the magnesium 



* Prof B. J. Chapman, Canadian Journal, Sept., 1865, p. 348. 

 t Prof. B. W. Clark, American Journal of Science, [2] xlix, 48. 



July, 1877. 1 Ann. N. Y. Acad. Scl, Vol. L 



