552 
FACTS AND OBSERVATIONS. 
A small number of ewes, which had been kept separate 
from the general flock, and the first-prize shearling ram at 
the Manchester show of the Royal Agricultural Society, 
with a son of his, and also a son of the first-prize shearling 
ram at the Bury St. Edmunds show, have been retained as 
a foundation for a future flock. 
Iron and Steel. — Mr. Gerhard, metallurgical chemist, 
of Wolverhampton, is proceeding with his experiments in 
the manufacture of iron, and has succeeded in producing 
from the ore, refined iron of a high order, at much under 
the cost of a similar quality very much sought after by 
certain machine founders and producers of finished iron. 
Mr. Gerhard, however, aims at the making of steel at much 
less cost than any of the methods now in vogue, and he has 
much confidence that he shall soon succeed. He believes 
that he can see his way to producting finished iron in a pure 
state without the interposition of the puddler . — Journal of 
the Society of Arts. 
Gun Cotton Ivory. — It has been discovered that cam- 
phor, triturated with gun cotton, and subjected to hydraulic 
pressure, produces a hard white substance, which, if coated 
with a compound of gun cotton and castor oil, resembles 
ivory, to which for many purposes it is superior. In order to 
detect what takes place in this curious transformation, Pro- 
fessor Seely placed fragments of camphor in a test-tube, and 
closed its upper end with a plug of gun cotton ; the tube was 
then set in a water-bath, when, in a few minutes, the tube 
became filled with red vapour, and the gun cotton exploded 
with violence. It has long been known that camphor must be 
added to alcohol before gun cotton will dissolve in it. — Ibid. 
Solubility of Metals. — Mr. Charles A. Seeley, of 
New York, has communicated to the Journal of the Franklin 
Institute some results of his recent experiments on the solu- 
bility of metals without chemical action. He has been inves- 
tigating the properties of ammonium amalgam, which, from 
the mercury being increased tenfold in bulk, and also from 
the fact that it is compressible in a syringe, recovering, 
however, both its volume and appearance on pressure being 
removed, he believed to be a mercuric froth rather than an 
amalgam. Further investigation led him to the discovery 
that ammonia was a solvent of all the alkali metals. 
