Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/842

824 Sir Humphry Davy as to the non-existence of oxygen in muriatic acid, clinging to the statement of Lavoisier that all acids contain oxygen, and he claims that combustion is accompanied by decomposition of oxygen gas. The doctor's Analysis of Malachite from Perkioming, Pa., is given as follows: One hundred and twenty grains of the green carbonate contained carbonic acid, thirty grains; quartz and siliceous earth, sixty-eight grains; brown oxide of copper, fifteen grains; loss, seven grains. The specimen was evidently a poor one. No account was taken of the water, and reporting results in percentages does not seem to have been in vogue.

The same writer, in Remarks on Putrefaction, discusses the action of antiseptics and attributes the virtues of nitrate of potash to the increase of cold produced by the muriate of soda. His other papers are argumentative and speculative, with little originality.

Franklin Bache's three papers are likewise speculative disquisitions. In one he points to the "great error" in which Berthollet fell as respects the law of chemical affinity, and in another he proposes to introduce the following improvements in nomenclature: Nitral acid forming nitrotes; nitril acid forming nitrutes; nitrous acid forming nitrites; and nitric acid forming nitrates.

Four of the papers in the Memoirs are by Dr. John Manners. His Experiments and Observations on the Effect of Light on Vegetables abounds in quotations from Darwin's Botanic Garden. In the Mineral Spring at Willow Grove, fourteen miles from Philadelphia, he found iron and sulphureted hydrogen. In Experiments and Observations on Putrefaction he tested the influence of carbonic acid, hydrogen, and other gases on putrefying flesh, and he attempted to collect and analyze the gases generated by the same. He concludes that "putrefaction depends on a destruction of the equilibrium of attractions which exists in the elementary principles of which the animal substance is composed in a healthy state, occasioned by the loss of vitality in consequence of which new compositions and decompositions ensue."

The president of the society. Prof. Cutbush, describes quite clearly the "oxyacetite of iron" as a test for the detection of arsenic, a process since used quantitatively by Kotschoubcy.

Speculations on Lime, by Dr. Joel B. Sutherland, contains the singular claim that if mortar be made with sand containing common salt the resultant compound gives "so much coldness to the mass that during the whole summer vapor is almost incessantly precipitated on a wall" with which it is plastered.

Mr. Edward Brux, of France, one of the junior members, writes Upon the Effects of Various Gases upon the Living Animal Body, which consists largely of speculations,