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POPULAIi SCIENCE REVIEW. 
change in this would involve considerable change in formulae, and further, 
that the present formulae were quite convenient. 
Atomic Weights of Cobalt and Nickel. — These have been investigated by 
Winkler, who has determined them in the following manner : — The metals 
were prepared in a state of perfect purity ; the cobalt, by reduction of re- 
peatedly recrystallised purpureo-cobaltic chloride in a current of hydrogen at 
a high temperature. The nickel, by adding to a solution of the commercial 
carbonate in chlorhydric acid sodic hypochlorite, and treating the liquid in 
this manner again so long as any cobalt could be detected in it ; the solution 
was then purified from traces of copper and arsenic and precipitated with 
sodic carbonate. The carbonate was converted into chloride, and sublimed 
in a current of chlorine, and lastly reduced in a current of hydrogen. 
Weighed quantities of the metals were then immersed in a perfectly neutral, 
concentrated, cold solution of sodioauric chloride, and the weight of the pre- 
cipitated gold determined. The mean of five experiments with cobalt gave 
the number 29496. The mean of four with nickel, the number 29'527. 
Blowpipe Reaction of Manganese and Chlorate of Potass. — In a recent 
number of the Chemical News , it is stated that if chlorate of potash be 
heated by means of a blowpipe, in a tube closed at one end till oxygen is 
evolved, and then a trace of manganese added, the potash-salt will assume a 
purple colour, owing to the production of permanganate of potash. This re- 
action of manganese is quite as delicate as the one proposed by Berzelius. 
How to test the Purity of Quinine. — In these days of pharmaceutical adul- 
teration, a reliable test for the purity of a drug is of the utmost value. The 
method, therefore, which M. Stoddart recommends for the detection of 
quinidine when mixed with quinine, may be of interest to our readers. Six: 
grammes of the suspected quinine are dissolved in a test-tube in 5 grammes 
sulphuric acid, diluted with 3 grammes water; to this are added 7’5 grammes 
ether, 18 grammes alcohol, and 2 grammes of a solution of sodic hydrate con- 
taining about 8 per cent. The mixture is well shaken, and left to itself for 
12 hours. If quinidine, cinchonine, or cinchonidine are present, they will be 
found in a layer below the ether— quinidine as an oily liquid, cinchonidine 
in crystals. The second method consists of a microscopic examination of the 
crystalline precipitate produced in a saturated and neutral solution of 
quininic sulphate by potassic sulphocyanide. — Vide Journal Pharm. iv. 50. 
Death of Dr. Thomas Richardson. — The death of Dr. Richardson has been 
so fully announced in the weekly and monthly journals, that we are only fol- 
lowing a routine custom in reporting it. Few English chemists were better 
or more favourably known to science than Dr. Richardson. He was Reader 
in Chemistry at the University of Durham, as well as a Fellow of the Royal 
Societies of London and Edinburgh, and member of the Royal Irish Academy. 
He died somewhat suddenly, at Wigan, of congestion of the brain. Of late 
years Dr. Richardson was best known to the chemical world by his work in 
connection with u Richardson and Watts’s Chemical Technology.” Several 
papers of his are to be found in the volumes of the Chemical News and 
Chemical Gazette. 
Neiv Method of Qualitative Analysis. — A method in which neither sul- 
phuretted hydrogen nor ammonic sulphide is employed, has been suggested 
in Poggendorff s Annalen (cxxx. 324) by Herr E. Zetnow. The following are 
