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POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
M. Dietzenbacher has lately discovered some singular properties of 
sulphur. He found that when acted upon by small quantities of iodine, 
bromine, or chlorine, it became soft and malleable at the ordinary tem- 
perature, and retained this property for some time. This modification of 
sulphur, which was originally discovered by M. St. Clair-Deville, is inso- 
luble in bisulphide of carbon. It is considered that this transformation 
may throw some light on the details of the manufacture of india-rubber 
vulcanized by sulphur and chloride of sulphur. 
M. Era. Guinet has been investigating the phenomena of transport 
through porous bodies, and has found that Mr. Graham’s dialyser could 
be replaced by a porous vessel of pipeclay, similar to those employed for 
batteries. With such vessels he states that he has repeated many of Mr. 
Graham’s experiments, and has been able to perform others which 
appeared impossible, with vegetable parchment. He found, for instance, 
that a mixture of solutions of sugar and gum were easily separated by 
this means, the sugar passing through the porous clay and the gum being 
retained. With the same apparatus he succeeded in separating caramel 
from bichromate of potash ; and he has an experiment still going forward 
on an ammoniacal solution of oxide of copper. This solution could not 
have been submitted to dialysis with vegetable parchment on account of 
its action on that material. 
The diffusibility of solutions of solids in other liquids was also tried, as, 
for instance, solutions of iodine, sulphur, and naphthaline in bisulphide of 
carbon ; if a solution of these three substances is submitted to dialysis, the 
sulphur and naphthaline pass through the dialyser much sooner than the 
iodine, from which he infers that the smaller the molecules of which a 
substance is composed, the more readily do they pass through the porous 
diaphragm, which may be viewed as a kind of sieve. The molecules of 
colloids may be supposed to be made up of larger groups of atoms than 
those of crystalloids, and hence would be more easily retained by the 
diaphragm. 
ONG before the ages of Boulder-clay, and Drift, when the climate of 
England was much as it is now, and about the time when the Newer 
Crag was deposited, the Norfolk shores were skirted with dense forests. 
From Happisburg to Cromer, and much farther, they are to be seen along 
the level of a deposit, marked by fossil shells, which indicate the sediment 
of old contemporary lakes and rivers, of which there is now not a trace. 
After a series of changes, the Drift period supervened, the forests were 
thrown down, and a dark brown clay, with boulders as big as cottages, was 
piled sixty feet high, over lake and forest, as the country sank under the 
sea. And now, after innumerable ages, this same sea has again eaten 
away part of its last-formed stratum, till the hrown clay stands as a bold 
cliff, and exposes at its base the old land on which the forest grew. Search- 
ing among the old tree stumps we may find acorns and beech-nuts, and 
here, and by dredging on an extension of the bed out to sea, are gathered 
GEOLOGY AND PAL/EONTOLOGY. 
