654 
Extracts from British and Foreign Journals. 
MANUFACTURE OF ALUMINIUM. 
By M. H. Sainte-Claiiie Deville. 
I have the honour of presenting to the Academy the first 
samples of aluminium, which I have made at the expense of 
the Emperor, in the manufactory of chemical products of the 
Societe Generale of Javel, by a process which I shall make 
known in detail hereafter, but which I shall mention sum- 
marily in this note. 
The industrial preparation of the materials which I em- 
ployed for producing aluminium, that is to say, chloride of 
aluminium and sodium, appear to me to be a solved problem, 
with the exception of the improvements which the study of 
every question of large manufacture will necessarily lead to 
by the daily employment of the apparatus. 
The chloride of aluminium is obtained by making chlorine 
react on a mixture of aluminium and coal tar previously cal- 
cined. The operation is effected in a gas retort with remark- 
able facility and perfection. It results, from my observations, 
that the action of chlorine is complete on a layer of one or 
two decimetres at most of the mixture, so that the absorption 
of the gas is always total. The condensation of the chloride 
of aluminium is operated in a chamber of brickwork lined 
with delft. As may be judged from the specimen which I 
submit to the examination of the Academy, it is a compact 
matter of sulphur-yellow crystals. This chloride contains 
very little iron ; it is purified entirely in its treatment for 
aluminium, because its vapour is passed over points of iron 
heated to about 400° C. (752° F.). The sesquichloride of 
iron, which is as volatile as the chloride of aluminium, is con- 
verted, by contact with the iron, into protochloride, and be- 
comes comparatively very fixed. The vapour of chloride of 
aluminium issues from the apparatus, giving colourless and 
transparent crystals. 
The sodium is now prepared, in large and small vessels, 
with great facility. I have most carefully studied the influ- 
ence of the temperature, of surfaces of heating, and of the 
force of the vapour of sodium issuing from my apparatus, and 
I am convinced that we may, by properly regulating the re- 
lation between the heating surface and section of the tubes 
