REPORT ON CHEMISTRY. 
479 
for an isomeric oxide, were it not that Simon has described 
what appears to be a lower oxide, of a black colour *, ob¬ 
tained from the solution of the nitrate, and that we are already 
acquainted with other appearances which seem to indicate the 
existence of such a lower oxide. The subject is highly de¬ 
serving of investigation. 
Antimony and lead do not expand at the moment of congela¬ 
tion as was formerly supposed ; so that water, bismuth, and 
cast-iron, are the only bodies which possess this property; and 
in regard to cast-iron it is still doubtful. 
Zinc contracts greatly ; potassium also contracts, and arsenic 
at least three times as much as bismuth expands, if we may 
judge from the fact that a mixture of one fourth of its w r eight 
of arsenic prevents bismuth from expanding on becoming solid. 
Copper , pliosplmret of. —Phosphuret of copper, prepared by 
passing a current of phosphuretted hydrogen through a solu¬ 
tion of sulphate of copper, is a black powder, which when 
heated in close vessels assumes the colour and lustre of me¬ 
tallic copper, and gives no phosphorus flame before the blow¬ 
pipe. It has in this state been mistaken by some chemists for 
pure copper. Prepared by passing phosphuretted hydrogen 
over heated chloride of copper, it is nearly black, does not lose 
its dark gray metallic lustre by heating, and gives a phosphorus 
flame before the blowpipe. Like so many other compounds of 
phosphorus, therefore, these two phosphurets are isomeric. 
According to Rose, they have both the composition 3 Cu + 2 P. 
Salts. —The department of salts is so very extensive, and it 
has within these few years received such large additions, 
that it is impossible, in a Report like the present, to give even 
an outline of the great progress that has been made in filling 
up the chasms in this branch of the science. 
To this great advance Dr. Thomson has contributed much 
in his First Principles ; Berzelius, in his elaborate papers on 
the fluates, the cyanides, the seleniates, the sulpho-salts, those 
of thorina, vanadium, and tellurium, platinum, and the metals 
which accompany it; Stromeyer, in investigating the salts of cad¬ 
mium; Arfwedson, those of lithia; Mitscherlich, in his various 
memoirs on isomorphous bodies; Gmelin, in forming the red 
prussiates ; Sir John Herschel, in his description of the hypo¬ 
sulphites ; Bonsdorf, in his papers on the double chlorides, 
bromides, &c. ; Boullay, on the double iodides ; Persoz and 
Rose, in examining the compounds of ammonia, with many 
* Berzelius’s Arsberattelse, 1832, p. 112. 
