Physics and Chemistry. 409 
Again, the brownish red vapor of perchlorid of iron produced no ab- 
sorptive bands; but when converted into vapor in a flame this gave out 
bands independent of the form in which it occurred combined. These 
anomalies appeared to admit of an easy explanation on the supposition 
at, in any case, the compound is decomposed in flame, either simply by 
the high temperature, just as water is, as shown by Grove, or, in all other 
cases of the production of bright lines by the introduction of a metallic 
salt into a flame of burning bodies (as shown by Deville). In the vol- 
taic pile the decomposition must of necessity take place by electric action. 
fhe compound gases, protoxyd and binoxyd of nitrogen, gave, when 
electrified, the same series of bright bands (as Pliicker had shown) which 
h. Aqu i 
their constituents when combined furnish. 
” expected.— Atheneum, Sept. 14, 1861. 
HEMISTRY,— ‘ : 
_ 2. On Cesium and Rubidium—Buysen has communicated a prelim- 
iMary notice of the two new metals discovered by Kirchhoff and himself 
by means of the spectral analysis, Both of these metals exhibit in their 
Compounds an extraordinary resemblance to potassium, cannot 
distinguished from it either by reagents or by the blowpipe. The first of 
® new metals is named Rubidium from Rudbidus, dark red, referring to 
two very remarkable spectral lines, which lie beyond Fraunhofer’s line A, 
Am. Jour. Sc1.—Srconp Series, Vou. XXXII, No. 96,—Nov., 1961. 
52 
