Chemistry and Physics. 189 



SCIENTIFIC INTELLIGENCE 



I. Chemistry and Physics. 



1. The Isomer of the Potassium Ferricyanide. — About 13 

 years ago, Locke and Edwards, working in the Sheffield Chemical 

 Laboratory, described potassium /3-ferricyanide, which they pre- 

 pared by boiling solutions of the ordinary salt with hydrochloric 

 acid. The new salt differs from the ordinary one in crystalline 

 habit, in color, in having a molecule of water of crystallization, 

 and in various reactions with solutions of the heavy metals, the 

 reaction with a dilute nitric acid solution of bismuth nitrate being 

 particularly characteristic, as it gives no precipitate with the 

 /3-ferricyanide, while it gives an immediate precipitate with even 

 very dilute solutions of the ordinary salt. Recently Bellucci and 

 Sabatini have explained the isomer by showing that it is an 

 isonitrile, K 3 Fe(NC) g .H 2 0, while the ordinary salt is a nitrile, 

 K 3 Fe(CN) 6 . In spite of all these convincing facts, Hauser and 

 Biesalski have made an attempt to show that the /3-ferricyanide 

 is merely the ordinary salt contaminated with a trace of col- 

 loidal Prussian-blue. There is no doubt that they are absolutely 

 mistaken about this matter. Curiously enough, although they 

 are situated at the University of Berlin, and appear to have con- 

 sulted the original articles, they have ignored entirely the bismuth 

 reaction, without which they were not in a position to prepare 

 the /3-ferricyanide in a pure condition, since in this preparation it 

 is very difficult to remove the ordinary ferricyanide. It appears, 

 therefore, that they performed their experiments with mixtures of 

 the two ferricyanides, and it is certain that their conclusions 

 are entirely without foundation. — Perichte, xlv, 3516. h. l. w. 



2. Osmium Tetr oxide as an Oxygen Carrier. — It is well 

 known that osmium through its oxides may act as a carrier for 

 atmospheric oxygen, but this agent does not appear to have been 

 employed for preparative purposes on account of its high cost, 

 and probably because it has been supposed that the oxidation 

 would proceed without a stopping point to the formation of 

 worthless products. Upon studying this subject further, K. A. 

 Hofmanx has found that osmium tetroxide acts rather slowly as 

 a carrier of atmospheric oxygen in cold solutions, but that the 

 action is more rapid with oxygen at a pressure of 10 atmospheres 

 and a temperature of 50-100° C. In this way by using 0*01 g. of 

 Os0 4 in 200 cc of solution it was found that 40 per cent ethyl alco- 

 hol was oxidized chiefly to acetic acid and aldehyde in the course 

 of 3 or 4 hours, while diluted methyl alcohol was oxidized 

 to formaldehyde and formic acid. It was observed that the 

 aldehydes are very slowly or not at all oxidized by this action. 

 The very interesting discovery was made that the oxygen of 

 chlorates is made active by the presence of osmium tetroxide, 



