26 M. Troost on the Equivalent of Lithium. 



an impure condition, and may be purified by the method described 

 by Niemann. 



Lossen tried the use of amylic alcohol in extracting the free 

 base, but did not find it advantageous. It led, however, to the 

 discovery of a new base, which seems to exist preformed in the 

 plant. It is a liquid, and Wohler gives to it the name Hygrine 

 (vypos, liquid). It may be distilled with water; its odour is 

 like that of trimethylamine ; it is strongly alkaline, but not 

 bitter, and forms white fumes with volatile acids. Its hydro- 

 chlorate crystallizes, but is very deliquescent. With bichlo- 

 ride of platinum it gives a flocculent non-crystalline precipitate. 

 Hygrine is not poisonous; a few drops administered to a puppy 

 were without apparent action. 



Troost* has made another determination of the atomic weight 

 of lithium, having discovered, by means of spectrum-observations, 

 that the salts of lithium which he had previously used for this de- 

 termination were not absolutely pure. 



He prepared pure carbonate of lithia by precipitating chloride 

 of lithium by carbonate of ammonia; the precipitate, washed 

 and dried, was suspended in water, through which a current of 

 carbonic acid was transmitted. It rapidly dissolved, and was 

 reprecipitated in the crystalline state when the liquid was boiled. 

 A new solution and new precipitation gave a preparation in which 

 spectrum-analysis showed no trace either of sodium, csesium, or 

 rubidium. 



This carbonate was converted into chloride by heating it in a 

 hard glass tube in a current of hydrochloric acid. The chloride 

 of lithium was precipitated by means of nitrate of silver, and in 

 this way the numbers 7*030 and 6*99, in the mean 7*01, were 

 obtained for the equivalent of the substance. To control this 

 result by another method, the carbonate was decomposed, in 

 one case by sulphuric acid, in another case by heating it with 

 an excess of pure pulverized quartz : this latter method gave the 

 numbers 7*00 and 7*02, in the mean 7 '01 ; the former method 

 in two determinations gave the number 7*06 as that of the 

 equivalent of lithia. 



These results thus confirm those obtained by Diehl, who found 

 the number 7"026. 



Devillef has described a method by which he has obtained 

 Levyne artificially. Two solutions were prepared, one of silicate 

 of potash, and the other of aluminate of soda, in such propor- 

 tions that the oxygen contained in the silica was to that in the alu- 



* Comptes Rendus, February 17, 1862. 

 t Ibid. February 17, 1862. 



