1870.] Zoology. 431 



if a platinum electrode be applied ; but the decomposition, which is 

 chiefly the result of the electrolysis of this salt, is its splitting up 

 into oxygen, phosphorus, and soda. Carbonate of soda in a fused 

 state is a good conductor of electricity ; it is decomposed into car- 

 bonic acid and soda, but a small portion of carbon is also formed. 



A series of very accurate experiments, made with chemically 

 pure substances, have been tried by M. E. Becquerel, on the electro- 

 motive force of divers substances, as for instance, pure carbon, gold, 

 platinum, &c, in the presence of water and other fluids. Among 

 the curious facts elicited is this, that pure gold, obtained from the 

 French Mint, is acted upon by pure water in a manner not hitherto 

 explained, but which gives the author occasion to ask whether pos- 

 sibly gold does not contain another substance which has not been 

 discovered, or whether perhaps the slow action of the water is not 

 the cause of the disaggregation of the gold, thus explaining the fact 

 of its being found in rivers in the state of dust. 



In a very lengthy paper on the properties of galvanically-pre- 

 cipitated iron, R. Lenz records a series of experiments, not only made 

 with iron, but also with copper. The results are stated as follows : — 

 Iron and copper, when reduced to the metallic state by electricity, 

 contain gases occluded, among which hydrogen is in largest amount : 

 the bulk of gas thus occluded varies considerably, but iron has been 

 found by the author to occlude as much as 185 times its own 

 bulk. The absorption of the gases is more considerable in the first 

 layers of metal deposited. On being heated, the iron loses gas, 

 even below 100°, the gas evolved at so low a temperature being 

 chiefly hydrogen. Iron which has been galvanically precipitated, 

 and then made red-hot and cooled, becomes oxidized when put into 

 water, that liquid being decomposed and hydrogen given off. 



12. ZOOLOGY— ANIMAL MOBPHOLOGY AND 

 PHYSIOLOGY. 



Morphology. 



A new Ganoid Fish from Australia. — "We have this quarter to 

 record what is certainly the most important zoological acquisition 

 which science has received since the finding of the Archaeopteryx 

 of Solenhofen. Mr. Gerard Kreft, the able curator of the Austra- 

 lian Museum of Sydney, who has already by his single exertions 

 shown us what a rich mine of new forms is still waiting to be 

 brought to the hands of science in the Australian continent, has sent 

 over photographs of a fish obtained in the rivers of Eastern Queens- 



