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APPENDIX

TO THE

MONTHLY REVIEW,

VOLUME the SIXTY-FIFTH.

FOREIGN LITERATURE.

ART. I.

Hiftoire de l'Academie Royale des Sciences, &c i. e. The Hiftory and Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris, for the Year 1775 4to. 1778.

ANATOMY.

EMOIR I. Concerning the Effects of Mephitic Exhalations, exemplified by the Death of M. LE MAIRE, and his Wife, who lived in the Street St. Honoré, at Paris, and were fuffocated by the Vapour of Coal, the 3d of August, 1774. By M. PORTAL. The fact, that occafioned this Memoir, excited the fenfibility and compaffion of the Public, and drew, in particular manner, the attention of the Medical Faculty, to an object that frequently produces pernicious, and fometimes fatal effects. A young couple, into whofe apartment the vapour of coal, lighted in the hearth of a chimney, which had a communication with theirs, entered, loft their lives in one day by this unhappy accident. M. PORTAL, who was called too late to their relief, here publishes the obfervations which accidents of this kind have furnished him with, that speedy and well-directed fuccours may not be wanting to thofe who may hereafter be exposed to the fame danger.

In thofe who die by the fuffocation of coal-vapour, the animal heat remains for a confiderable time; their members continue flexible, and the face is rather of a more lively and florid colour than it was in a state of health. On opening the body, there is no blood found in the pulmonary veins, nor in the veffels on the left fide of the heart, while thofe on the right fide are full of blood, and thofe of the brain are turgid and inflated in APP. REV. Vol. lxv. ·

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a high degree. This diforder is the natural and ordinary confequence of the want of refpiration, which is the cause of death in those who are fuffocated by mephitic vapours, arifing either from coal, or fubftances in fermentation. The means of relief proposed by our Academician are, phlebotomy, expofing the body to fresh and renewed air, the application of cold water, the infufflation of air into the lungs, and the use of ftimulants. He infifts particularly on conveying air to the lungs by a tube applied to one of the noftrils, while the other is ftopped. This latter he confiders as the safest and fureft method of conveying air to the lungs, as the application of the tube to the mouth may prefs down the uvula, which, in fuch circumftances, is naturally open, and thus increase the danger. When all these means prove unfuccefsful, M. PORTAL recommends opening the arterea trachealis, if an able furgeon can be found, who will venture upon fuch a critical operation, which, indeed, is the Jaft refource. He looks upon the ufe of emetics, and the introduction of fmoke of tobacco into the inteftines, as dangerous; fince the recovery of refpiration is the great object in accidents of this nature. The details into which M. PORTAL enters in defcribing the alterations obfervable in the bodies of fuffocated perfons; his enquiries into the caufes from which these alterations proceed, and his manner of appretiating the different methods that may be employed for the relief of these unfortunate patients, render this Memoir highly inftructive and useful. CHEMISTRY.

Mem. I. Concerning the Nature of the PRINCIPLE which is combined with Metals during their Calcination, and which augments their Weight. By M. LAVOISIER. This ingenious Academician had proved in a former memoir, that metals, during calcination, absorbed air, and that to this air they owed the real augmentation of their weight. He proved this, by fhewing that a part of that portion of the atmospherical fluid, in which the calcination had been made, was absorbed ; and that the weight of the abforbed part was equal to the additional weight which the metallic calx had acquired. But as the air of the atmosphere cannot be confidered as a fluid abfolutely pure, or as a fimple element, it ftill remained a queftion, which of thofe fubftances that compofe the atmospherical fluid it is, that is combined with metals when they pafs into the state of calxes. The folution of this question is the fubject of the prefent Memoir. As M. LAVOISIER was reducing metallic calxes by the addition of phlogifton, he perceived an expanfible Auid difengaging itself from the calx, which had all the properties of fixed air; but the fame fixed air difengages itfelf from burning coal, fo that this refult did not clear up the point in queftion. He then bethought himself of reducing, in clofed veffels, precipitate per

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fe, or red precipitated mercury, a kind of metallic calx which is reducible without addition. From this he difengaged an aerial fluid, better adapted to animal refpiration than the common air of the atmosphere, and also more capable of favouring and promoting combuftion. This fluid is the fame with that to which he has given the denomination of air eminently pure, which Dr. Prieftley calls dephlogisticated air, and which, when mixed with nitrous air, has the property of precipitating it under the form of spirit of nitre. The process obferved by our Author is largely defcribed in this Memoir, and feems to prove evidently, that the principle which is combined with metals during their calcination, and which augments their weight, is nothing more than the pureft portion of the air we breathe, which paffes, in this operation, from a state of expanfibility, to a ftate of folidity. If, therefore, it be obtained in the state of fixed air in all the metallic reductions where coal is employed, it is to the combination of the latter with the pure portion of the atmospherical air, that this effect is owing, and our Author thinks it highly probable that all the metallic calxes would, like thofe of mercury, yield only an air eminently adapted to refpiration, if they could be all reduced without addition, as is the cafe of the precipitate per fe. Our Author draws another conclufion from the-above mentioned procefs in the following words. Since the coal disappears entirely in the reduction or revivification of calx of mercury, and nothing is obtained from that operation but mercury and fixed air, we must conclude, that the principle to which the denomination of fixed air has been hitherto given, is the refult of the combination of the eminently pure portion of the air with coal. This I design to prove and illuftrate in a fatisfactory manner in some subsequent memoirs on this subject.'

Mem. II. New Obfervations on the Nature and faline Properties of Zinc, in a metallic Form, or reduced to a Calx. By M. DE LASSONE.

Mem. III. New Details relative to the Action of volatile Alkalies on Zinc. By the fame. M. DE LASSONE, in a former memoir, had made it appear, by feveral facts, accurately compared and connected, that zinc, as well as arfenic, is poffeffed of metallic and faline properties. In the two Memoirs now before us, he examines the combination of volatile alkali with zinc, both in its ftate as a metal and as a calx; and confiders the phenomena which refults from this combination. The folubility of zinc in volatile alkali was rather conjectured than known by the chemifts. Our Academician proves, that volatile alkali, in a fluid form, diffolves the filings of zinc with effervefcence, and the flowers of zinc without effervescence, but, however, in a manner more expeditious and complete: the al

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kaline liquor must be faturated and employed immediately after the volatile alkali has been procured from fal ammoniac by the intervention of fixed alkali.-This new combination of zinc has given M. DE LASSONE an occafion of making fome enquiry into the nature of this femi metal. Some noted chemifts have looked upon it as a particular combination of iron; to which notion they were probably led by this circumstance, that iron is obtained both in mines of zinc, and from zinc prepared in the mines. M. DE LASSONE endeavoured to procure Prusfian blue, by precipitating the zinc from its folution in volatile alkali, and he fucceeded fometimes; but it was only when be employed in this operation either the zinc that is an object of commerce, or acids which contained a small portion of iron. The zinc that had been previously purified in his elaboratory, and the acids which had been carefully prepared, yielded no Pruffian blue. Our Academician concludes from hence that zinc is totally diftinct from iron, though it has fome lines of refemblance to that metal, and is fometimes mixed with it.

Mem. IV. Concerning feveral Ammoniacal Salts. By M. DE LASSONE. The Academician examines here the combinations of volatile alkali with the acid of vinegar, with cream of tartar, with the nitrous acid, with arfenic, and with fedative falt.

Mem. V. Concerning the Reduction or Revivification of Cal es of Copper. By M. TILLET. This curious Memoir deferves the attention of the gentlemen of the mint. Theory and pracice unite here in pointing out the leaft expenfive method of reducing calx of copper in the known operation of melting it with coal.

Mem. VI. Concerning the Action of the Electrical Fluid on metallic Calxes. By Mefirs. BRISSON and CADET. Some learned philofophers, and among others, F. BECCARIA, published experiments, which proved, in their opinion, that the action of electricity reduces or revivifies metallic calxes, and thus produces the fame effects that are obtained by the phlogifton of the chemifts. Our Academicians have proved the contrary in this Memoir, by the jufteft reafonings, and repeated experi

ments.

Mem. VII. Obfervations on the Decompofition of fulminating Gold. By M. SAGE. It appears from the researches of Mr. Bergman, that gold acquires this fingular quality only by its combination with volatile alkali, or (which is more probable) with one of the principles of which that alkali is compofed. M. SAGE defcribes, in this Memoir, a fingular phenomenon, which accompanies, the detonation of fulminating gold. When it is detonated on a plate of filver or copper, zinc or cobalt, the gold appears incrufted in the plate under a metallic form; but on tin, lead, bifmuth, antimony, and regulus of arfenic, the fulminating

fulminating gold is no more obferved under a metallic form, but under that of calx of gold, more or less deep in colour. This calx, melted with white glafs, produces glafs of a violet hue; but the ftrength of the colour varies according to the kind of metal on which the gold has detonated. If a folution of gold in aqua regia be precipitated with the metals on which the gold. after detonation re-appears under a metallic form, the gold, is precipitated under the fame form; but gold is precipitated under the form of a calx, by the fame metals on which, after detonation, it is found without its metallic form.

BOTANY.

This clafs contains a Memoir by Linnæus, concerning the cyca (a kind of plant, which by its fize and external form seems related to the palm tree genus, but which the Swedish Botanist places among the ferns), and a fhort account given by M. Du Hamel, of a fingular excrefcence in the graft of an apple-tree. ASTRONOMY.

Mem. I. Oppofitions of Mars, obferved at Paris for several ·Years paft, and compared with the Tables. By M. DE LA LANDE. Mein. II. Elements of the Orbit of Mars, from the last Oppofitions, calculated by a more fimple Method than thofe that have been bitherto employed. By the fame.

Mem. III. Concerning the Conjunctions of Saturn with the Moon in February and March 1775; together with Reflexions on the Inaccuracy of the Tables. By M. LE MONNIER.

Mem. IV. Concerning the Conjunction of the Moon with Alde baran, obferved at the Paffage by the Meridian, April 1775. By the fame. This conjunction may be employed to verify the greatest quantity of the moon's variation, in the mean diftances between the earth and the fun.

Mem. V. Obfervations of Jupiter, relative to his Oppofition to the Sun, December 8, 1775, made at the Royal Obfervatory. By M. JEAURAT.

Mem. VI. Inquiries concerning feveral Points in the mundane Syftem. By M. DE LA PLACE. The fubjects treated in this learned and elaborate Memoir, are, The law of gravity at the furface of homogeneous fpheroids in equilibrio.-The phenomenon of the tides, the preceffion of the equinoxes, and the nutation of the axis of the earth, which refult from this phenomenon, the ofcillations of the atmofphere, occafioned by the action of the fun and the moon.

Mem. VII. Obfervation of the Occultation of Saturn by the Moon, made at the Royal Obfervatory, the 18th of February, 1775. By M. CASSINI DE THURY.

Mem. VIII, The Occultation of Saturn by the Moon, made the fame Day, in the Evening, at the Obfervatory of the Marine. By M. MESSIER,

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