404 
EDITORIAL OBSERVATIONS. 
which seems to possess some advantages over that in ordinary 
use. It is of a yellow colour, and while producing greater 
effect with the same quantity, has the valuable property of 
not fouling the barrel, even after numerous discharges.” 
But that which interests us most is the fact that a solution of 
gun-cotton is used as an adhesive agent in the cure of wounds, 
under the name of collodion, which is well known to be also 
largely employed in the arts. Similar observations might 
be made in reference to artificial parchment, produced by 
the action of dilute sulphuric acid on unsized paper. The 
satirical cui bono ? would be less frequently given vent to 
were men more conversant with historical science. It is 
their ignorance which, in the eyes of many, renders them so 
seemingly wise—wise alone in their own conceit—and we 
know what Solomon says of such. 
The editor of the Chemical News on this metal says: 
“ Since the announcement by Messrs. F. W. and A. 
Dupre of the existence of a fourth member of the calcium 
group of metals, which they state they have detected by 
means of the spectrum, I have searched various private me¬ 
moranda on the subject of the spectra given by artificially 
coloured flames, which I have been investigating at intervals 
during the past eight years, and have found recorded that 
the calcium spectrum occasionally yielded me a blue line, 
not due to potassium or strontium, and in the position indi¬ 
cated by these gentlemen as belonging to their supposed 
new metal. I have, therefore, re-examined specimens of 
lime-salts with a more perfect spectrum apparatus, and find 
that all of them give me a blue line, situated, as described 
by the Messrs. Dupre, ‘ between the lines of Sr§ and Kj3, 
about twice as far from the former as from the latter. In 
brightness and sharpness of definition quite equal to the 
line SrSS 
“No methods of further purification or treatment by 
fractional precipitation, to which I have submitted some per¬ 
fectly clear and colourless Iceland spar and other very pure 
lime compounds, having succeeded in my hands in producing 
a salt which would exhibit a spectrum in which the brilliancy 
of this blue line was in the least degree either diminished or 
increased in proportion to that of the other red, yellow, and 
