78 
MISCELLANY. 
nine o'clock in the evening in all the different stages; some entering 
half distracted to feed the craving appetite they had been obliged to 
subdue during the day: others laughing and talking wildly under the 
effects of a first pipe ; whilst the couches around are filled with their 
different occupants, who lie languid with an idiot smile upon their coun- 
tenance, too much under the influence of the drug to care for passing 
events, and fast merging to the wished-for consummation. The last 
scene in this tragic play is generally a room in the rear of the building, 
a species of dead-house, where lie stretched those who have passed 
into the state of bliss the opium-smoker madly seeks — an emblem of 
the long sleep to which he is blindly hurrying." — Ibid. 
Action of Hydracids upon Oxyacids. By C. Lecomte. — The action of 
hydracids upon the oxyacids has not hitherto been investigated in a 
general manner. We possess, in fact, but a memoir by M. Baudri- 
mont upon the formation of nitromuriatic acid, by the reciprocal action 
of hydrochloric and nitric acids dissolved in water ; and a notice by 
M. Millon, who observed that sulphuretted hydrogen was without 
action upon nitric acid previously deprived of hyponitric acid by means 
of nitrate of urea and diluted with twice its volume of water. I trust 
therefore that the following researches will prove interesting to 
chemists. 
The apparatus which I have employed to study the action of hydro- 
sulphuric acid upon nitric acid is very simple. It is composed of a 
balloon communicating with a washing-flask, and this with a second 
flask surmounted by a tube for collecting the gases ; when all is thus 
arranged, some fragments of the sulphuret of antimony and hydrochlo- 
ric acid are conveyed into the balloon and some milk of lime into the 
washing-flask. The balloon is placed over a charcoal furnace. When 
all the air of the apparatus had been expelled, 85 grms. of nitric acid 
of 1.33 spec, grav., freed from hyponitric acid by means of nitrate of 
urea, were poured into the second flask kept in water, which was 
carefully maintained at a temperature of 64°— 68° F. 
On the appearance of the first bubbles of sulphuretted hydrogen in 
the nitric acid, a considerable number of minute bubbles were observed 
to be disengaged from different points of the liquid; at the same time 
sulphur separated and remained in suspension ; the atmosphere of the 
flask became of an orange colour, and the nitric acid so intensely green 
as to prevent the passage of light ; gradually this colour diminished, 
and the sulphur aggregated into a mass at the surface of the liquid. 
The action was continued until the sulphuretted hydrogen passed 
through the nitric acid without experiencing any change. 
