420 — Scientific Intelligence. 
cussed hypothesis. The memoir in question is one of comer 
thoroughness and detail, which requires to be carefully mee 
does not admit of an abstract. Full details are given of t e balan 
employed, of the methods of purification and analysis made use a of the 
vessels used and the changes which they undergo; in short of ‘all the 
precautions avanires to render the results as free as possible from errors 
of observat 
The Seale of this immense and conscientious labor is that there is no 
common divisor for the equivalents of the elements. In his own words, 
the author icc attained “the full conviction, and so far as is humanly 
possible the perfect certainty, that Prout’s law, together with the modifi- 
Sea introduced by Dumas, is nothing but a deception, a pure hy- ~ 
e 
The equivalents deduced by Stas are as follows: 
Potassium, | 39°154 from the decomposition of the chlorate. 
Sodi 23°05 
Ammonium, 18:06 
107°9 
Silver. 4 
a _ 103°45 from the synthesis of the sulphate. 
“ ; 2: 6“ “ “ 6“ nitr 
Chlorine, 35°46 
Nitrogen, 14-04 
Sulphur, 16:03 
Berazelius found for potassium 39°150; Pelouze 39-156, and Marignac 
39'161. By comparing the equivalents of ammonium Pe nitrogen in the 
table it will be seen that the difference is 4°02 instea As 
equivalent of nitrogen was deduced from the roti: of nitrate of silver, 
it follows either that this is inace iat or that ‘the equivalent of hydro- 
gen is inaccurate by the gio Of its value. Stas considers the last as 
pena. and proposes to institute a new Tinvcaetns of the composition 
echerches sur les rapports réciprociques des poids atomiques, 
Brux. 1860, quoted in Jour. fir prakt. Chemie, 29, p. 65, No. go 1861. 
. G 
8. On the polyatomic bases of the nitrogen, phosphorus and canis 
series. —A. W. Hormann has given some general views on the structure 
of the ammonia-derivatives which will serve as a useful guide in the study 
of the immense number and variety of new bases with which he has 
enriched the science, When dibromid of ethytene C,H,Br, reacts with 
a monamin, as for example with ammonia, either one or two molecules 
of the latter are fixed and there result two series of salts, one of which is 
monatomic and the other <a and the Some ees of which is ex- 
pressed in the following formul 
I. Diatomic series. Il. Monatomi , 
ey. Nabe (CaHsBr) tenibe nie 
| 4)"2HiN2|"Bra | - CaHsBr)2H2N |Br | Bromethy 
eae ae Ethylene — RGB ye H N|Br bases. 
(CaHaBr)a N]Br 
_In the salts of ta, second series bromine may be eliminated either 
wholly or hydric acid, formed either at the expense of 
water present—in ge case the atomic group HO, replaces bromine— 
