312 
POPULAR SCIENCE REYIEW. 
CHEMISTRY. 
The Chemical Society's Faraday Lecture. — On Thursday, May 30, Pro- 
fessor Cannizzaro, of Palermo, delivered the “Faraday Lecture ” before a 
large audience, including a number of ladies. The Lecture Theatre of the 
Royal Institution had been kindly lent to the Chemical Society for this 
purpose, and the learned Professor’s discourse was entitled “ Considerations 
sur quelques Points de l’Enseignement Theorique de la Chemie.” On the 
following Friday a dinner was given to the Professor, at which about 150 
were present, including the Italian ambassador and the Right Hon. the 
Chancellor of the Exchequer. We think it is a pity that some arrangement 
is not made by which the lecturer could address his audience in English, 
for we are certain that very few of them apprehend French sufficiently well 
to take in even the substance of the lecture. 
Chemical Analysis of the Meteoric Fain in Sicily of March 9, 10, and 11. 
— M. 0. Silvestri has an important memoir on this subject in the “ Comptes 
Rendus,” April 9, 1872. This memoir contains the results of the researches 
made on rain-water along with which fell a kind of sand ; the water, having 
been filtered, was found to be colourless and free from smell, but exhibited 
a saline taste; it was neutral to test-paper; hardness, 17*5 degrees (ordinary 
Tain-water, 1 degree). By long-continued boiling, it gave off 19| c.c. of 
gas, consisting of: nitrogen, 83-959 per cent. ; oxygen, 13-070; C0 2 , 2-971. 
On being evaporated to dryness, this water was found to contain, in 1,000 
parts : bicarbonates of lime, 0129 ; of magnesia, 0-035 ; of iron, traces ; 
sulphate of lime, 0-041 ; chloride of potassium, traces ; sulphate of soda, 
0-009; chloride of sodium, trace ; organic matter, 0-063. The sand, very 
finely pulverised and dust-like, has a sp. gr. —2-5258, and contains, in 100 
parts: clay, 75-08; carbonate of lime, 11*65; organic matter, 1310. 
Dr. Hoffmann on Fhosphuretted Hydrogen. — On Dr. Hoffmann’s recent 
visit to this country, he went to the Chemical Society as a matter of course. 
On April 18 he there experimentally exhibited the formation of phos- 
phuretted hydrogen by the action of water on iodide of phosphonium, and 
the decomposition of iodide of ethyl-phosphonium by water, liberating the 
ethyl-phosphine, E 2 HN, which has the characteristic odour of the phos- 
phorus bases. He also explained Baeyer’s method of preparing iodide of 
phosphonium on the large scale by the action of water on iodide of phos- 
phorus, stating that it was necessary to employ a large excess of phosphorus, 
three or four times the theoretical, since much of it is converted into the 
amorphous state, and thereby rendered inactive. 
Chloride of Sodium in Liebig's Extract of Meat. — In the “ Annalen der 
Chimie ” for May, Baron Justus von Liebig has written a paper with the 
view to refute the allegation made by a Dr. Godefroy, who appears to have 
published, in an Austrian scientific paper, a statement to the effect that 
Liebig’s extract of meat should contain 2 per cent, of chloride of sodium, 
purposely added as a fraud. The author refers Dr. Godefroy to his (Liebig’s) 
essays, published in the “Annalen” twenty years ago, “On the Constituents 
of the Fluids contained in Meat,” and emphatically denies that at Fray 
Bentos, where the extract of meat is made, any common salt is added to it. 
Chloride of potassium is largely contained in the extract. 
