Page:Experimental researches in chemistry and.djvu/420

1857.] agate pressure appeared to change this brown towards blue. Zinc: the reflexion bright white and metallic; the transmission a dark smoky colour with portions of blue-grey, brown-grey and pale brown; agate pressure tended to change the blue-grey to brown. Palladium: the reflexion fine metallic and dark grey; the transmitted light, where most abundant, sepia-brown; agate pressure converted the tint in the thinner places from brown towards blue-grey. Platinum: the reflexion white, bright and metallic; the transmission brown or warm grey with no other colours; agate pressure increased the reflexion and diminished the transmission as with tin. Aluminium: the reflexion metallic and white, very beautiful; the transmitted light was dark brown, bluish brown, and occasionally in the thinner parts orange; agate pressure caused but little change.

Films of Gold (and other metals) by Phosphorus, Hydrogen, &c.—effect of heat—pressure.

The reduction of gold from its solution by phosphorus is well known. If fifteen or twenty drops of a strong solution of gold, equal to about 1½ grain of metal, he added to two or three pints of water, contained in a large capsule or dish, if four or five minute particles of phosphorus be scattered over the surface, and the whole be covered and left in quietness for twenty-four or thirty-six hours, then the surface will be found covered with a pellicle of gold, thicker at the parts near the pieces of phosphorus, and possessing there the full metallic golden reflective power of the metal; but passing by gradation into parts, further from the phosphorus, where the film will be scarcely sensible except upon close inspection. If plates of glass be introduced into the fluid under the pellicle, and raised gradually, the pellicle will be raised on them; it may then he deposited on the surface of pure distilled water to wash it; may be raised again on the glass; the water allowed to drain away, and the whole suffered to dry. In this way the pellicle remains attached to the glass, and is in a very convenient condition for preservation and examination.

If phosphorus be dissolved in two or three times its bulk of sulphide of carbon, and a few drops of the fluid be placed on the bottom of a dry basin, vapour of the phosphorus will soon rise up and bring the atmosphere in the basin to a reducing