296 A. LIVERSIDGE. 
_ Lxperiment 18.—To ascertain if finely divided gold would burn 
in arsenic vapour, I introduced some. gold leaf; it combined in 
much the same way,as the foil, but more quickly. 
Experiment 19.—Gold leaf introduced into the vapour of 
sulphur was apparently unchanged. 
Baperiment 20.—Thin sheet sold, thinner than that nied for 
making the gold arsenide was heated in a piece of combustion 
tubing for nearly an hour, with the hottest flame obtainable with 
the blowpipe lamp used for making the experiments on gold and 
‘arsenic, but without fusing it or causing any signs of fusion to 
appear on its edges, hence there is no possibility of the gold 
having been fused in previous cases, 1.¢., its fusion was due to 
the formation of a fusible compound with the arsenic. This test 
was repeated with the same result in both cases. 
Experiment 21.—Some precipitated gold was made into an 
amalgam and roasted at a low temperature in the front part of a 
gas muifle, the gold was left as an ochre coloured lustreless cauli- 
flower-like mass ; under the microscope, however, it is seen to 
have the usual colour and lustre of metallic gold ; the innumerable 
bright points which reflect the light being too small to be seen by 
the unassisted eye ; the general appearance is much like that of 
the excrescences of gold from roasted auriferous mispickel ; but 
the spiral and moss like growths are almost absent, although a 
number of hair like filaments of gold are seen in the cavities and 
recesses of the mass. | 
When the pieces of amalgam were roasted at a high temperature 
they fused and coalesced, the appearance was rougher from the 
boiling and more rapid expulsion of the mercury, but the number 
of capillary growths and filaments was not increased. Doubtless 
most or all of the compounds of gold with volatile elements would 
yield moss gold on roasting. 
Compounds of gold and arsenic do not appear to be mentioned 
in modern English works of reference upon chemistry. In 
Aiken’s Dictionary of Chemistry and Mineralogy, p. 537,_London 
