and lastly that of valeric acid.--_Amer. Chem. Journal._

[Footnote 8: Berichte d. Deutsch. Chem. Gesellsch., xv., 1,370
and 1,663.]

* * * * *




ON SILICON.


It is known that platinum heated in a forge fire, in contact with
carbon, becomes fusible. Boussingault has shown that this is due to the
formation of a silicide of platinum by means of the reduction of the
silica of the carbon by the metal. MM. P. Schützenberger and A. Colson
have produced the same phenomenon by heating to white heat a slip of
platinum in the center of a thick layer of lampblack free from silica.

The increase in weight of the metal and the augmentation of its
fusibility were found to be due, in this case also, to a combination
with silicon. As the silicon could not come directly from the carbon
which surrounded the platinum, MM. Schützenberger and Colson have
endeavored to discover under what form it could pass from the walls of
the crucible through a layer of lampblack several centimeters in
thickness, in spite of a volatility amounting to almost nothing under
the conditions of the experiment. They describe the following
experiments as serving to throw some light upon the question: