Am.  Jour.  Pharm.) 
Sept.,  1877.  ( 
Varieties. 
469 
available,  and  is  insufficient  for  the  needs  of  higher  organic  life.  The  soils  contain 
more,  because  the  organic  world  has  gleaned  for  the  soil.  Potassa  and  soda  are 
two  alkalies  which  replace  each  other  in  the  laboratory  at  the  convenience  of  the 
chemist,  but,  in  the  choosing  of  the  living  cell,  one  of  these  is  always  taken  and  the 
other  left.  We  get  potassa  free  from  soda  in  the  ash  of  a  tree  which  grew  in. a  soil 
having  more  soda  than  potassa.  From  sea-water,  containing  nearly  200  parts  of 
soda  to  one  of  potassa,  the  sea-weeds  furnish  an  ash  having  two  to  twenty  times 
more  potassa  than  soda.  From  the  blood  of  man,  having  ten  to  fifteen  times  more 
soda  than  potassa,  the  muscles  obtain  a  composition  of  six  or  seven  times  more  po- 
tassa than  soda. 
This  gleaning  is  good  proof  of  the  value  of  more,  and  the  evidence  is  confirmed  by 
the  application  of  potassa  as  a  fertilizer  The  stock  of  potassa — Avhich  is  used 
somewhat  in  the  arts — is  derived  mainly  from  the  gatherings  of  the  organic  world. 
The  ash-wagon  takes  up  the  savings  of  the  hearth.  In  France  the  washings  of 
sheep's  wool  are  saved,  and  160  pounds  of  good  potassium  carbonate  are  obtained 
from  a  ton  of  the  wool.  In  the  pioneer  life  of  this  country,  the  house-wives  have 
burned  corn-cobs  and  taken  the  ash  for  baking  powder,  eighty  per  cent,  potassium 
carbonate,  and  preferable  to  the  "  dietetic  salaratus  "  now  used.  Should  the  ash  of 
the  entire  corn  crops  of  the  United  States  be  taken  without  loss,  it  is  estimated  that 
over  100,000,000  pounds  of  potassium  carbonate  would  be  obtained.  In  the  salt- 
beds  at  Stassfurt,  Germany,  there  is  a  good  proportion  of  potassa,  and  the  use  of 
this  supply  has  been  steadily  increasing,  both  as  material  in  manufactures  and  as  a 
fertilizer. — A.  B.  Prescott.  Ibid. 
Lavcesium,  a  New  Metal,  named  in  honor  of  Lavoisier,  has  been  discovered  by 
M.  Prat,  in  iron  pyrites  and  other  minerals.  It  is  of  a  silvery  white  color,  mallea- 
ble and  fusible.  The  solutions  of  its  salts  yield  precipitates  with  ammonia,  readily 
soluble  in  excess  ;  rosecolored  (like  roses  du  bengale)  with  ferrocyanide  of  potassium  5 
deep  yellow-green  with  tannin  ;  a  brown  coloration  changing  to  a  fawn-colored  pre- 
cipitate, with  hydrosulphuric  acid. — Chem.  News,  April  6. 
Davyum,  named  in  honor  of  Sir  Humphrey  Davy,  is  the  name  given  to  another 
new  metal,  the  isolation  of  which  has  been  announced  by  Sergius  Kern.  It  has 
been  found  in  platinum  ore,  and  appears  to  occupy  a  place  midway  between  molyb- 
denum and  ruthenium. — Ibid.,  July  6. 
Preparation  of  Pure  Bismuth  and  Bismuth  Compounds. — The  usual  impu- 
rities, even  in  what  is  sold  as  pure  bismuth,  are  silver  and  iron.  Quesneville's  pro- 
cess, viz.  :  fusing  the  metal  with  nitre,  has  the  disadvantage  of  being  extremely  waste- 
ful, a  large  quantity  of  bismuth  being  oxidized.  Nor  can  bismuth  be  separated 
from  it  by  precipitation  as  oxychlorides  with  water,  for  iron  is  invariably  a  constitu- 
ent of  the  precipitate.    If  the  mixture  be  fused  under  a  mixture  of  potassium  chlo- 
