398 Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 



determined by introducing a portion of the salt into a graduated 

 tube, inverted over mercury, and by decomposing it with water. 



The mean of experiments performed in different modes gave as 

 the composition of this substance, — 



Chlorine 43'89 



Nitric oxide 4*98 



Platina 41*26 



Water and loss 9*87 





100. 



BLUE OXIDE OF TITANIUM IN SCORLE. 



In analysing the blue scoria? of different countries, M. Kersten 

 found small quantities of titanic acid, and that these scoriae possessed 

 a blue colour similar to that of the blue oxide prepared in the dry 

 way ; he presumed, therefore, that this colour, instead of being 

 derived from the protoxides of iron and manganese, which some- 

 times occur in them, might be owing to titanic acid [oxide ?] . Ac- 

 cording to the facts above stated, it is very probable that titanic acid, 

 which occurs very often in the ores of iron, after having been dis- 

 solved and scorified during the operations of the blast-furnace, is 

 reduced to the state of oxide by the fused iron, similarly to what 

 occurs in the humid way with solutions, and as has happened in se- 

 veral preceding assays. If this assumption be well founded, it 

 ought to be possible, with the substances usually contained in the 

 scoriae and with titanic acid, to reproduce blue glass on the small 

 scale. M. Kersten succeeded, not only in fusing together silica, 

 lime, alumina, titanic acid and iron, all of them pure, and in pro- 

 ducing earthy glasses of a blue colour, resembling the blue scoriae 

 of iron, but also succeeded in obtaining them with the same earths, 

 titanic acid and zinc free from iron, or with pure tin. 



M. Kersten, therefore, concludes from these researches, that the 

 blue colouring matter of many iron scoriae is the blue oxide of ti- 

 tanium. This blue oxide deserves some attention from its applica- 

 tion to the arts, and the author endeavoured to procure blue ena- 

 mels upon porcelain by using it ; and though they were not so fine 

 as those of cobalt, they most nearly approach them. — L'Institut, 

 No. 353. 



ON THE PROTEIN OF THE CRYSTALLINE HUMOUR. 



This substance was discovered by Berzelius, and according to 

 him it constitutes 35*9 per cent, of the crystalline humour, and does 

 not become, like albumen, a coherent mass by coagulation, but a 

 granular one. In other respects its properties are similar. 

 This new product may be obtained as follows : — 

 The crystalline humour is to be carefully separated from fifty ox- 

 eyes, they are to be washed, the cells torn, water is to be added 

 and filtered. The liquor heated in a water-bath soon coagulates 

 and deposits clots. After drying, the pounded mass was subjected 

 to the action of alcohol and water, and boiled ; after this it was 

 dried at 266° Fahrenheit. 



