416 Scientific Intelligence. 
The line mentioned has a perceptibly greater refrangibility than the 
blue line of strontium, and there appears besides a much weaker line, of 
still greater refrangibility, which almost, but not quite, reaches the blue 
line of calcium, 
Sept. 12, 1863. 
n some new volatile alkaloids given off during putrefaction—Dr. 
Crace Catvert communicated under this title to the Royal Soc’y (Feb. 
1860) the preliminary results of some investigations on the products of 
putrid wounds, with reference to the contagion known as hospital gan- 
gr : 
amorphous powder. This precipitate collected, washed with water and 
alcohol, and dried, was found by analysis to contain carbon, hydrogen, and 
nitrogen, but what was remarkable sulphur and phosphorus also entered 
into its composition. The amount of these elements determined quantita- 
tively was 11 per cent for the sulphur and 6-01 per cent of phosphorus, of 
e whole precipitate. By heating a quantity of the platinum salt wit 
a strong caustic ley, a liquid, volatile and inflammable alkaloid was ob- 
tained, whilst sulphur and phosphorus remained combined with the 
ali, i 
gen. 
The platinum salts, heated in test tubes, give off vapors, some acid, some 
alkaline, of a most noxious and sickening odor, resembling putrefaction, 
6. Selenocyanids in Photography.—Mr. Emerson J. Reynoups has 
udied the action of selenocyanids in photography, and finds that it 1s. 
sg that of the sulphocyanids, An aqueous solution of seleno- 
Me 
