403 
Chemistry. 
melted anthracite are also perfect nonconductor s, which may 
be conceived less remarkable, since the ordinary anthracites have 
very little conducting power ; but the Rhode Island anthracite 
conducts as well as plumbago, and its globules are perfect non- 
conductors. Professor Silliman remarks, 66 that it will now pro- 
bably not be deemed extravagant, if we conclude that our melt- 
ed carbonaceous substances approximate very nearly to the con- 
dition of the diamond. ,1 — Amer. Journal , vol. vi. p. 378-9. 
32. Dr Wollaston on Metallic Titanium. — Dr Wollaston’s 
attention was directed by Professor Buckland to certain very 
small cubes, having the lustre of burnished copper, that occa- 
sionally occurred in the slag of the iron-works at Merthyn Tyd- 
vil. These cubes had been considered pyritical ; but Dr 
Wollaston has found that they are metallic titanium, with a 
specific gravity of 5.3. “ From the extreme infusibility of 
these cubes,” says Dr Wollaston, £S it seems probable that they 
have not been formed by crystallisation in cooling from a state 
of fusion ; but have received their successive increments by re- 
duction of the oxide dissolved in the slag around them ; a mode 
of formation to which we must have recourse for conceiving 
rightly the formation in nature of many other metallic crystals.” 
— Phil. Trans. 1823, part 1. 
33. Acid Earth of Persia. — This singular substance, some of 
which was brought to England by Lieutenant-Colonel Wright, 
is found in great quantities at a village called Doulakie, in the 
south of Persia, between three or four days’ journey from Bu- 
shire. It is used by the natives to make their sherbets. Mr 
Pepys has found that it contains sulphuric acid. — Phil. Mag. 
No. 303, vol. lxii. p. 75. 
34. Bitumen , and a Volatile Fluid in Minerals. — The 
Right Honourable George Knox, has lately communicated to 
the Royal Society a paper in which he shews that bitumen may 
be obtained by distillation in a proper apparatus, from a variety 
of minerals, such as basalt, greenstone, serpentine, mica, &c. 
Mr Knox has also found another fluid substance of a highly vola- 
tile nature ; but he has not yet examined it. 
35. Native Sulphate of Iron and Alumina. — This salt found 
in the slate-clay at Hurlet and Campsie in Scotland, is com- 
posed, according to Mr R. Philips, of 
c c 2 
