626 
LIVERPOOL CHEMISTS’ ASSOCIATION. 
confess before you with humility that there are many photographers, especially among 
those who engage in the art as a profession, who are very much influenced in their 
operations by the rule of chance. Most of the additions to the general stock of informa¬ 
tion have been achieved by the amateurs, men who have studied science for the love of it, 
and not for profit; and yet these are the very men who can afford to devote the least 
time to such matters. 
In addressing you then as those engaged in commercial pursuits, but who still feel 
and acknowledge, by the establishment and maintenance of such an Association as this, 
that you are deeply alive to the importance of the hidden mysteries of chemistry, I wish 
to engage your sympathies so as to infuse a little of your enthusiasm into that compara¬ 
tively neglected branch of your wondrous science which I humbly represent, and thus 
by your example and co-operation assist us in the meritorious work of bestowing upon 
photography an acknowledged place among the sister branches of art and science. 
The thanks of the meeting were cordially awarded to Mr. Glover for his interesting 
paper. 
The Fourteenth General Meeting, May 5, at the Royal Institution; Mr. J. Shaw, 
President, in the chair - . 
Several donations were announced to the Library and Museum, and thanks accorded. 
Dr. Edwards introduced and explained the automatic percolator, and a discussion 
followed. 
The Lecture of the evening was by Mr. Edward Davies, F.C.S., on Iron. 
Mr. E. Davies, F.C.S., then delivered a lecture on “Iron.” The subject, he said, was 
one for which, from the importance of iron and its compounds, both generally, and also 
with reference to pharmaceutical preparations, he asked their attention whilst he brought 
before them some of the important facts relating to this most valuable metal. Iron is one 
of the earliest mentioned metals. This is not improbably due to the numerous masses of 
meteoric iron scattered over the earth’s surface. Iron weapons and tools have in modern 
times been made in Africa from this source. It is remarkable that the most useful metal 
should be one which has fallen from the skies as a gift of Heaven to man. This may ex¬ 
plain the great value which was attributed to this metal in Homeric times, when at the 
funeral games in honour of Patroclus, the discus of iron to be thrown was itself thought 
worthy to be the prize. Iron is everywhere, in the dust of the air, in the water, and in the 
earth. Scarcely can anything in nature be named, in which chemical tests will not reveal 
the omnipresent element. Of no metal is there such store in the bowels of the earth, and 
there for the use of man does it lie, until with mighty labour it is extracted from its ores. 
The process of smelting, puddling, and manufacturing steel, both by the old method 
of carbonizing and the newer one of partial decarbonizing of the cast iron, were then 
described. 
No metal is capable of such immense increase of value by manufacture. From a raw 
material of a value too small to note, hair-springs for watches may be made worth £130 
the ounce troy, almost thirty times the value of tine gold. 
The compounds of iron naturally begin with its oxides, as these are the forms in which it 
is usually met with. The protoxide, which cannot be isolated, when hydrated, is used in 
medicine; like the other oxides and compounds insoluble in water, its activity depends on 
its being dissolved by the acids of the stomach, and taken into the system. 
The magnetic oxide, remarkable for the property from which it derives its name, and 
important as the source of the best Swedish iron, follows, being a compound of the prot¬ 
oxide with the sesquioxide, and is also used as a medicinal agent. 
The sesquioxide is that oxide with which we are most familiar, as in the form of rust 
it is unfortunately often to be seen. Haematite, an ore much used, is also this oxide. Ses¬ 
quioxide of iron has usually little or no magnetic power, but if the artifically-prepared 
magnetic oxide be gently heated with chlorate or nitrate of potash, it retains its power of 
being attracted by a magnet, though entirely converted into sesquioxide. This discovery, 
made in 1860, by Mr. Robbins, a member of the Pharmaceutical Society, may stir up 
young pharmaceutists to venture in pursuit of new truths, as original research need 
not be confined to professional chemists. Insoluble as sesquioxide would appear to be in 
water, Professor Graham’s researches in dialysis have shown that by gradual removal of 
the hydrochloric acid, perchloride of iron may be decomposed, and a solution of peroxide 
of iron in water obtained. This solution is readily destroyed, a drop of acid, or alkali, 
or even of a neutral salt, being sufficient to precipitate the whole of the oxide. 
