4 
PROEESSOE EOSCOE’S EESEAECHES ON VANADIUM. 
(8) Vanadium nitride has been prepared, which, on analysis, was shown to contain 
51‘3 parts by weight of vanadium to 14 parts of nitrogen. 
All the reactions according to which vanadic acid was supposed (Berzelius, Bammels- 
berg, Schafarik, &c.) to contain three atoms of oxygen with an atomic weight V=67'3 
can equally well be explained when V 2 0 5 (V=5L3) is taken to represent the composi- 
tion of this substance. That this is the case is seen from the following : — 
( 1 ) 
( 2 ) 
Berzelius’s formulas. 
(V=68-5. 0=8.) 
V0 3 +H 2 =V0+H 2 0 2 
3(V0) + C1 6 =V0 3 +2(VC1 3 ) 
New formulae. 
(V =51-3. 0 = 16.) 
V 2 0 5 + 2 H 2 = V 2 0 3 + 2 (H 2 O) 
3(V 2 0 3 ) + 6 C1 2 =V 2 0 5 + 4(V O Cl 3 ) 
II. OCCUERENCE AND PREPARATION OE THE ’VANADIUM COMPOUNDS. 
1. The sources of vanadium, although numerous, have up to the present time yielded 
the compounds of this metal in such extremely small quantities that vanadium salts may 
still be counted amongst the greatest of chemical rarities ; and consequently the satis- 
factory investigation of their properties has proved so difficult that contradictory state- 
ments, concerning even fundamental points, are made by recent experimenters. My 
attention was directed some time ago to the occurrence of vanadium in some of the 
copper-bearing beds of the Lower Keuper Sandstone of the Trias, worked at Alderley 
Edge and Mottram St. Andrews, in Cheshire ; and I was fortunate enough to secure a 
plentiful supply of this rare metal by the purchase of a lime precipitate containing 
vanadium which had been obtained as a residue in the extraction of cobalt from the 
cobalt-bed sandstone at Mottram, by the Alderley Edge Copper Mining Company. 
The geological features of the remarkable deposit of metallic salts which occurs in this 
Keuper Sandstone have been well described by Mr. Hull*. The horizontal beds of 
sandstone contain copper as blue and green carbonates, lead both as carbonate and as 
galena, cobalt as black cobalt-ochre, and iron oxides, all in workable quantities, together 
with arsenic, silver, manganese as dioxide, and barium as heavy spar. The sandstone is 
of a soft and uniform texture, and is metalliferous to a depth of at least 60 feet ; it is 
coloured variously from green and brown to black, according to the nature of the 
covering of metallic ore which surrounds the grains of sand. The following arrange- 
ment of the beds is given by Mr. Hull : — 
ft. in. 
1. Yellowish sandstone 4 0 
2. Shaly clay with a band of copper-sand at the bottom 2 6 
3. Ferruginous sandstone, with large nodules containing carbonate of lead . 6 0 
4. Cobalt bed, laminated sandstone containing earthy cobalt 4 6 
5. White compact sandstone, with carbonate of lead 5 0 
6. Iron-stained sandstone, with cobalt, manganese, and iron 12 0 
The copper is disseminated throughout the sand in quantities on an average of not 
* Geological Magazine, vol. i. p. 65 (1864). 
