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SELECTED ARTICLES. 
artillery. On plunging paper in nitric acid of the specific 
gravity of 1.5, leaving it there sufficiently long to become 
saturated, in general two or there minutes, taking it out and 
washing in a large quantity of water, a kind of paper is ob- 
tained impermeable to moisture, and of extreme combustibility. 
The same takes place in fabrics of linen and cotton. 
Jour, de Chiin. Med. 
ART. XII.—NECROLOGICAL NOTICE OF M, DULONG. 
By A. F. Boutron-Chalard. 
Science has sustained a loss by the decease of a man the 
most remarkable for the extent of his knowledge, his extreme 
modesty, and the brilliant qualities of his heart. M. Dulong, 
born at Rouen, the 12th of February, 1785, died, after a long 
illness, the 19th of July last. Devoted to science from his 
youth, at the age of sixteen years he entered the Polytechnic 
school; afterwards he studied medicine, and practised in Paris 
for some time, but finally abandoned the profession to devote 
himself to a series of labors, which attest the great profundity of 
his views, and the capacity of his mind. In 1811, when 
scarcely twenty-six years of age, he engaged in that series of 
experiments upon the chloride of nitrogen, during which he 
had the misfortune to loose an eye and three fingers; experi- 
ments which he recommenced as soon as recovery took place, 
and previous to making known this dangerous compound to 
the scientific world. 
The researches which M. Dulong has published upon the 
mutual decomposition of soluble and insoluble salts; his ex- 
cellent paper upon the combinations of phosphorus and oxy- 
gen; his observations upon some of the combinations of oxy- 
gen and nitrogen; those upon oxalic acid and the oxalates; 
the labor which he performed with Berzelius in 1819, at the 
time of the journey of the latter to Paris, which had for its 
