SCIENTIFIC SUMMARY. 
311 
glass may be used) and the exhausting tube as "well as tbe funnel in this 
case must be passed through the tubulure of the bell-jar. A similar 
arrangement is useful for the desiccation of boclies, either alone or with 
sulphuric acid. 
How to Demonstrate the Increase of Weight of Burning Bodies. — The 
Chemical News , abstracting a paper lately read before the Chemical Society 
of Berlin, says that a very striking mode of demonstrating in the lecture- 
room that burning bodies increase in weight has been contrived by H.Kolbe. 
A glass rod is fastened, in a horizontal position, to one arm of a balance. 
Upon this is fastened a glass cylinder in which a candle is burnt, connected 
with which, by a glass tube, there is a V-tube for condensing the vapour, a 
flask filled with lime-water for carbonic anhydride, and two more U-tubes 
containing soda-lime. The last are connected, by an India-rubber tube, 
with a Bunsen’s pump, by which a steady current of air is drawn through 
the apparatus. The beam is first counterpoised ; as the candle burns away, 
the arm of the balance to which it is attached sinks down until its progress 
is arrested by the table. 
The Literature of Alizarine. — In his interesting lecture before the Royal 
Institution, Professor Roscoe gives the following list of the contributions to 
the history of Alizarine ; and, as it may be useful for purposes of reference, 
we reproduce it : — 
Contributions to the History oe Alizarine. C 14 H 8 0 4 . 
1825. Faraday discovered Benzol in Coal-gas Oil. C 6 H 6 . 
183L Robiquet and Colin discovered Alizarine in Madder Root. 
1832. Dumas and Laurent discovered Anthracene in Coal Oils. 
1848. Schunck gave the Composition of Alizarine. C 14 H 10 0 4 . 
1850. Strecker „ „ „ C 10 H 6 0 3 . 
1862. Anderson examined Anthracene Compounds. C 14 H 10 . 
1865. Kekule explained the constitution of the Aromatic Compounds. 
1866. Baeyer obtained Benzol from Phenol. 
1868. Graebe investigated the Quinones. 
1868. Graebe and Liebermann obtained Anthracene from Alizarine. 
1869. „ „ „ Alizarine from Anthracene. 
♦ 
The Reactions of Aldehyde. — In a paper read before the Chemical Society 
of Berlin, Herren Kramer and Pinner describe the results of their researches 
on aldehyde by submitting it to the action of chlorine-gas. Conducted in 
this way, the reaction takes place in a different manner from that described 
by W urtz, who, pouring an excess of aldehyde into large vessels filled with 
chlorine, obtained chloride of acetyle and its compound with aldehyde. 
Neither of these substances has been obtained by Messrs. Kramer and 
Pinner. Nor is ordinary chloral obtained by this reaction, the aldehyde 
being entirely converted into the chloral of the condensed aldehyde, C 4 H 6 0, 
known as crotonic aldehyde. Crotonic chloral is a liquid, boiling at 165°, 
and forming with water, but not with alcohol, a crystalline compound. By 
oxvdation it forms triclilorocrotonic acid. Caustic potash transforms it into 
the corresponding chloroform C 3 II 3 C1 3 and its derivative C 3 H 2 C1 2 (bichlo- 
rinated allylene ?) boiling at 78°. 
The Chemistry of Vanadium. — In his communication to the Chemical 
