Fluidity of Sulphur. — Crystallization of Sulphur. 229 



FLUIDITY OF SULPHUR AT COMMON TEMPERATURES. 



Having placed a Florence flask containing sulphur upon a 

 hot sand-bath, it was left to itself. Next morning, the bath 

 being cold, it was found that the flask had broken, and in con- 

 sequence of the sulphur running out, nearly the whole of it 

 had disappeared. The flask being broken open, was examined, 

 and was found lined with a sulphur dew, consisting of large 

 and small globules intermixed. The greater number of these, 

 perhaps two-thirds, were in the usual opaque solid state; the 

 remainder were fluid, although the temperature had been, for 

 some hours, that of the atmosphere. On touching one of 

 these drops, it immediately became solid, crystalline, and 

 opaque, assuming the ordinary state of sulphur, and perfectly 

 resembling the others in appearance. This took place very 

 rapidly, so that it was hardly possible to apply a wire or other 

 body to the drops quick enough to derange the form before 

 solidity had been acquired ; by quick motion, however, it might 

 be effected, and by passing the finger over them, a sort of 

 smear could be produced. Whether touched by metal, glass, 

 wood, or the skin, the change seemed equally rapid ; but it 

 appeared to require actual contact ; no vibration of the glass 

 on which the globules lay rendered them solid, and many of 

 them were retained for a week in their fluid state. This state 

 of the sulphur appears evidently to be analogous to that of 

 water cooled in a quiescent state below its freezing point; and 

 the same property is also exhibited by some other bodies, but 

 I believe no instance is known where the difference between 

 the usual point of fluidity and that which could thus be ob- 

 tained is so great : it, in the present instance, amounts to 130°, 

 and it might probably have been rendered greater if artificial 

 cold had been applied. — M. F. — Journal of Science. 



CRYSTALLIZATION OF SULPHUR. 



The peculiar arrangement of the crystals of ice in a case of 

 hoar frost, where every crystal appeared as if it had en- 

 deavoured to recede as far as it could from the neighbouring 

 crystals, has been observed and described by Dr. Mac Cul- 

 loch, at page 40, vol. xx. of this Journal. A similar effect 

 may he pointed out as exhibited in crystallized sulphur. The 

 man who melts and purifies the sulphur at the gunpowder 

 works at Waltham Abbey is very expert in introducing wires 

 or wooden forms into the melted sulphur, which, acting as 

 nuclei cause a crystallization of sulphur as the whole cools, 

 and then, by letting out the liquid portions, the substances in- 

 troduced are found covered with acicular or prismatic crystals, 

 at times an inch or more in length. In this way he forms 



letters, 



