TA4 BULLETIN OF THE BUSSEY INSTITUTION. 
dric acid it was noticed that the lithium line persisted long after the potas- 
sium line had faded out. Both in this case and in that where the coal-ashes 
had been watered only with rain-water, the chlorhydric acid solution of the 
stalk ash gave a faint indication of calcium. 
The ashes of bean-stalks grown in coal-ashes that were watered with sul- 
phate of magnesia gave strong reactions for lithium and potassium and a 
faint reaction for calcium. A similar remark is true of the ash of bean-stalks 
from coal-ashes watered with phosphate of potash, only that in this last case 
the lithium reaction, though distinct, was not so brilliant and strong as in 
the three preceding tests. 
0.25 gramme of dry bean-stalks grown in coal-ashes that had been watered 
with a solution of nitrate of potash, on being reduced to ashes and tested with 
the spectroscope, gave the reactions of sodium, calcium, potassium, and lithium. 
But beans, i. e. the seeds obtained from a plant grown in coal-ashes and 
watered with a potassium salt, gave no lithium, but only potassium and 
sodium reactions. 
The ashes of peat from the Bussey farm gave a very strong reaction for 
calcium and good reactions for sodium and potassium, besides a faint but dis- 
tinct lithium reaction. 
The ashes of bituminous coal from Sydney, Cape Breton, treated with strong 
chlorhydric acid, gave reactions for potassium, sodium, lithium, and calcium. 
The ashes of English cannel-coal gave strong sodium and calcium reactions, 
and very faint indications of potassium and lithium. 
Fine dust swept from an iron pipe which served as a flue or chimney to 
the furnace from which the ashes of Series D were obtained, gave reactions 
for calcium, lithium, potassium, and sodium. 
A single attempt was made to determine precisely the amount of lithium 
in the coal-ashes, by the method recommended by Fresenius in his Quantita- 
tive Analysis, New York edition of 1871, p. 161, namely, by Ee 
as phosphate, but no satisfactory result was obtained. 
1.1147 gramme of the ashes fritted with carbonate of lime and chloride of 
ammonium, after Lawrence Smith, gave, after the removal of the dissolved 
lime by means of carbonate of ammonia, 0.0034 gramme of phosphate of lithia, 
which would be equivalent to 0.00132 gramme of Li,O, or 0.12 per cent, pro- 
vided the phosphate had been pure. But on testing the weighed phosphate 
with the spectroscope, the reactions of calcium, potassium, and sodium were all 
obtained, beside that of lithium. It seemed probable that the phosphate con- 
tained a considerable relative amount of calcium and sodium. In the press of 
other matters, no attempt has been made as yet to repeat this determination. 
It would of course be interesting to pursue this inquiry, not only with larger 
quantities of material, but by means of other analytical processes, until a sat- 
isfactory average result should be obtained. 
