374 Scientific Intelligent 



brick-red with i 



Boiled with tin and hydrochloric 



columbic and ilmenic acids, a blue solution.* From the pi 

 tallized double potassium fluoride, the atomic weight of neptunium 

 was fixed as 118, its atomic volume as 18, an 

 as 6-55. The formula of the acid is Np 4 7 , (H 2 0), 5 . The 

 sodium salt crystallizes in prisms. The author prepared metallic 

 columbium and ilmenium in the pure form and determined the 

 amount of oxygen taken up by these metals on heating them in 

 the air. Columbium required 20'49 and ilmenium 37*96 of oxy- 

 gen ; the amount obtained by Rose being 20*60 and by Marignac 

 38-00. Rose, therefore, ii is < h a>\ had pure columbium; while it is 

 equally clear, according to Hermann, that Marignac must have had 

 nearly pure ilmenium. This is stated to be a necessary result from 

 the method of preparation. After crystallizing out the tantalum- 

 potassium fluoride, Marignac evapi-iatid and 're-crystallized, ob- 

 taining a nearly pure ilmenium-potassium fluoride, from which he 

 prepared his metal. Hermann's paper concludes with an account 

 of his methods of separating the metals of this group, and descrip- 

 tions of their compounds. — J. pr. 67*., II, xv, 105, Feb. 1877. 



5. On the Phosphorescence of Organic Liquids.— Radziszmvski, 

 having ha i hi- attention < ailed to the phosphorescence of lophin 

 when acted on by potassium hydrate and oxygen, has extended 

 his observations to other bodies and finds that paraaldehyde, 

 metaaldehyde, aldehyde-ammonia, furfurin, hydroanisa*! 

 j: --, hydrocumamide, and hydrocum'mamide, haw all the same 

 Since these bodies ar tea or ammonia 



3 of aldehyde, their luminosity may be due to the oxida- 

 tion oi trie aldehyde. He therefore examined formic aldehyde, 

 and observed a bright phosphorescent light when its solution in 

 alcohol potash was agitated, and the formation of potassium 

 formate was proved. In the %ht 

 Noctiluca miliaris produces oil d 



nettles, the author suggests that ts, secretes 



1 not as such but as the aldehyde, which in the process 



n is the cause of their luminosity. When a current of 



oxygen is passed through a hot alcoholic solution of grape sugar 



containing potash, it becomes weakly luminous, a fact w 



-— the aldehyde nature of glucose. —Tier. Bert Chem. 



3 Berthelot described a new com- 

 pound sugar existing in the Uriancon manna prepared from the 

 larch (Lariat Ewropea). Viluil- 



Lahore, produced by exudation from the Alhagi 



- 5/ " "■■'"•""'. a tli. rnv ->u'. h,-|„n.Vni . , , th family < [ tin Lcsru- 





Dhorny shrub belonging to the family of the U'jiu- 

 abundant in Persia, where it is used both for medi- 

 me of Turanjbin. Crystallized from 

 it was obtained in the form of white 

 ae molecule of crystal-water which 

 the ordinary temperature, and then 



cine and as food under the name of Turanjbin. ( rvstallized from 

 : then from alcohol, it was obtained in the form of white 

 bulky crystals, containing one molecule of crystal-water which 

 they lose even in dry air r 1 '' 



