192 CHEMISTRY. 



elaphus, Linn.) and the roebuck (Cervus capreolus, Linn.) are found at various 

 Roman stations, I once saw the gi eater part of a skeleton of the former which the 

 peat had preserved, taken from the bottom of a ditch which emptied itself into the 

 river at Colchester. From these facts, a fair inference may be drawn that they 

 were once numerous in our woods and forests. The roebuck exists still in small 

 numbers in Dorsetshire, but the red deer has been driven to take refuge in the 

 Highlands of Scotland, which three hundred years ago were inhabited by a native 

 buffalo (Bos Taunts, Linn.) since that time become extinct. It may be interest- 

 ing to know that an antique Highland drinking horn, which was in the possession 

 of the late Mr. Croker, was of the horn of this animal. In the sister kingdom of 

 Ireland have been found, at various places, preserved in the peat bog of that 

 Island, the skeletons of the Irish elk (Megaceros Hibernious,) and in one instance 

 the bones were discovered along with weapons of bronze, seeming to prove 

 that this noble stag, now extinct for many centuries, was coeval with man, and 

 came by its death by his machinations. In several instances it has been found in 

 England, and one of the localities where it has been brought to light i3 in the 

 forest of Hoylake. Amongst the osteological remains found in London, Colchester 

 andHartlip, are the skulls of an entirely extinct ox (Bos longifrons) ; and the same 

 have been found in considerable numbers, along with Roman pottery at Newstead, 

 Roxburgshire; others found atChesterford, belong to a smaller species which may be 

 referred to that which is now called Alderney. The bone skates of mediaeval 

 times, in the museum of Mr. C. Roach Smith, dug up in Moorfields, — probably 

 lost when that locality was a moor, covered in winter with water, and frozen over,— 

 are said to be the bones of horses ; but some of the smaller ones are evidently the 

 metatarsal and metacarpal bones of the red deer. A musical instrument, a sort 

 of flute or whistle, was found with some urns, close to the Ermyn-street at Lin- 

 coln, in 1824. It is made of the tibia or thigh bone of a British bird, though now- 

 extinct, at least in Britain, the crane (Grits cinerea, Becks.), which in the 

 time of Ray the naturalist, who wrote in 1611, was plentiful throughout England. 

 Civilization has completely extirpated it, and the last straggling specimens upon 

 record were taken in 1831. 



D. W. 



CHEMISTRY. 



ALUMINUM. 



Deville has prepared considerable quantities of this metal from Kryolite, a min- 

 eral from Greenland, consisting of fluoride of aluminum with fluoride of sodium. 

 The mineral is tolerably pure, and can be readily reduced by placing it in fine 

 powder in a porcelain crucible with layers of sodium, a bright red heat is sufficient 

 to effect the reduction, which is accompanied by the evolution of an inflammable 

 gas, resulting probably from the decomposition of the phosphoric acid, which can 

 readily be proved to exist in Krijolite. The aluminum thus prepared is not quite 

 pure, containing some silicium from the crucible ; and Rose, who reduced it in the 

 same way, but used an iron crucible, found it contaminated with the same metal. 



Deville has succeeded in preparing a double fluoride of aluminum and sodium, 

 which is decomposed a3 readily as the Kryolite. 



Deville also remarks upon the property possessed by the alkalic fluorides of 

 dissolving various substances, such as silica and titanic acid, the mixture becomes 



