a Javanese belle has any secret declaration to make to a gallant on whom she may have cast her eye, she usually contrives to send him privately a chaplet of these flowers, and the fruit of the Durion, which is exceedingly large, resembling in shape a water-melon, with a very thick rough rind, and divided internally into numerous lobes, containing each a kernel resembling those of the Jack, and tasting like a mixture of boiled garlic and onions.

The phaseolus, from whence the oil is produced, grows wild in Java, and in great abundance. It appeared a most valuable plant, and I wished much to get some ripe seeds of it, in order to send them to England. Mr. Schowman told me they had been sent to Holland some years ago, and that they succeeded very well, even in the open air.

I had always been told that light attracted musquitoes and flies at night, and I had always seen the servants enter into the rooms, and shut the windows, in Italy and the southern parts of France, before they carried a candle into the bed-rooms. It seemed to me that the practice, therefore, of burning oil in the evening, and through the night, in the bed-chambers, would have the same effect here, and that it was, therefore, a bad custom. Mr. Schowman told me, that it was remarked that this oil emitted a smoke, or smell, that banished the musquitoes, and that, on that account, it had come into such general use. In the country, and in the suburbs of Batavia, they are accustomed to burn resins, aromatic woods, tobacco, and the dry leaves and twigs that fall from the trees, in order to drive away these troublesome insects; as well as to disperse the thick vapour and noxious effluvia of the stagnating waters around them. Mr. Schowman seemed to make greater difficulty in giving me specimens of the pepper than of all the other plants, and he always contrived to prevent me from pulling them myself. I remarked that he always avoided those whose grains appeared most approaching to maturity, and chose those which were quite green. I was at a loss for some time to account for this, till the gentleman who returned with me to Batavia in the evening explained it to me. It seems the Dutch are particularly jealous of their pepper, and take every precaution to prevent any ripe seeds of it from being carried away in a state capable of vegetation. It is death for any one caught in their spice islands attempting to carry off any of the plants or seeds, with a view to disseminate them elsewhere. We were told, however, by the French captain, from whom the Nereide, (afterwards named the Clarence was bought) that about fourteen years ago, a French ship went to Ceylon, and found means to carry off several plants and seeds of many of the spices, which were carried safe to the Isle of France, where, he said, he had frequently seen them himself, and particularly the pepper, in a thriving condition. He says, however, that the pepper does not form itself into such large grains as at Ceylon and the other Dutch settlements, but in other respects it is exceedingly good. This circumstance may, perhaps, one day hurt the Dutch very materially.

ART. VIII. An Analysis of Wootz, or Indian Steel. By M. Faraday, Chemical Assistant to the Royal Institution.

THE object of the following experiments being to ascertain whether any other substances were present in the wootz than iron and carbon, no attention was given to the relative proportions of these two bodies. The process was therefore much simpler than would otherwise have been required, and was conducted in the following manner :

A piece of wootz, weighing 164.3 grains, was placed in a flask, and acted on by nitro-muriatic acid and heat. It gradually dissolved, and dark-coloured flakes separated from it, which were unalterable in the acid, though boiled with it. When all action had ceased, the solution was poured off from the sediment (a) which was repeatedly washed with distilled water; the solution was then examined carefully, but I could find nothing in it but iron. Whilst washing the sediment (a) it separated into two parts; a black powder (b) sank to the bottom of the water poured upon it, whilst a reddish brown substance (c) in flocculi remained suspended; these were parted from each other.

The black powder (b) was fused with potash in a silver capsule, and then dissolved in water; it deposited a brown powder (d), and a clear alkaline solution was obtained. This was saturated with muriatic acid, and evaporated to dryness, and then being re-dissolved with a little excess of muriatic acid, a very small quantity of white flocculi were left untouched, which were insoluble in acids, and had the characters of siler. The solution acted on by subcarbonate of potash gave an abundant precipitate. This was washed, and when heated with a little solution of potash, dissolved in it like alumine. Sulphuric acid was then added, and a solution of alum was obtained, a small quantity of silex precipitating.

The brown powder (d) deposited by the alkaline solution, was treated with nitric acid; a little heat being applied, nearly the whole was dissolved immediately, leaving a little of a black substance. The filtered solution gave a precipitate with muriate of soda, but when ammonia was added to it, the precipitate was re-dissolved, and a small quantity of iron was thrown down. The solution contained, therefore, silver, from the capsule in which the fusion had been made, and iron derived from the wootz. The black substance left by the nitric acid, was nearly all dissolved by nitromuriatic acid, iron being taken into solution, and a little of the substance (b) remaining.

The reddish brown substance (c) was not affected by nitric acid, but, on adding solution of pure potash to it, a clear deep brown solution was obtained, and a blackish brown sediment (e) remained. When the alkali of the solution was neutralized by muriatic acid, flocculi were precipitated, and the solution became colourless. These flocculi, collected together and dried, proved to be combustible, and appeared to be merely modified tannin. The brown sediment (e) being then examined by muriatic acid, gave oxide of iron and a little silex.

I have detailed the process of analysis at length, because from the small quantities of silex and alumine obtained, doubts otherwise might have arisen respecting their sources.

The wootz, operated upon in the above experiment, was part of one of the cakes presented by the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks to Mr. Stodart. The piece was cut from the middle of the cake when heated to a cherry-red colour; consequently, it was submitted to chemical analysis in the same state in which it came from the crucible of the Indian-steel maker. In some other expe riments 460 grains gave 3 of a grain of silex, and .6 of a grain of alumine.

Mr. Stodart at the same time furnished me with another specimen of Indian steel, expressing a wish that it also might be subjected to analysis. This, too, was in the same state in which it was imported. The appearance of it, whilst being acted on by the acid, was very different to that of the wootz, and 625 grains gave me no silex, and only fifteen hundredths of a grain of alumine. 420 grains of the best English steel, furnished by Mr. Stodart, were acted on, but I could obtain no earths from it. A slight appearance of opacity in a solution was at last produced, which I ascertained to be alumine contained in the tests I had used. Many comparative experiments were afterwards made with the three specimens of steel, those from India always appeared perfectly distinct from each other in the kind and quantity of earths they gave, and the English steel invariably appeared without the earths; neither was the slightest reason offered for the supposition I at first entertained, that the earths came from the tests used in the analysis. Being engaged in the laboratory of the Royal Institution with Mr. Stodart, in a series of experiments on the alloys of steel, I was desirous, among other researches, to make an experiment, with a view of imitating wootz. In this, however, I have not yet been very successful; I have obtained specimens of iron, giving abundance of silex and alumine on analysis, and such alloys or combinations have been obtained by others; but they never present the appearance of wootz during the action of acids upon them, even though the metal used in making the alloy be in the state of steel; and if wootz owes its excellence to any portion of the bases of the earths, silex or alumine, combined with it, those substances must, I think, be either in a more perfect, or in a different state of combination, to what they are in alloys obtained by fusing iron for three or four hours, in contact with wood and the earths. April 24th 1819.

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ART. IX. On Sirium, or Vestium, by M. Faraday, Chemical Assistant in the Royal Institution.

In the last volume of this Journal, at page 112, I have published some experiments, tending to disprove the existence of the new metal Sirium, said to be discovered by Dr. Vest; and the conclusion drawn from them was supported by the very high authority of Dr. Wollaston. Since that time I have been honoured by receiving a piece of the ore of Sirium from Sir Humphry Davy, and on reading in the Annals of Philosophy a translation of Dr. Von Vest's paper, in which the metal, and the method of procuring it, are more distinctly described than had been done before in this country, I considered it a sort of justice to that chemist, to endeavour to obtain from the ore I possessed the new metal, according to his processes,

The metal has received a new name from Dr. Vest, who, instead of Sirium, has in his paper called it Vestium; Sirium and Vestium are therefore synonymous, and I shall generally use the

latter.

The piece of ore I possessed weighed only 75.4 grains. It appeared perfectly clean, and being finely powdered, was digested in nitric acid. It was not previously fused with glass as directed, because it did not appear to contain any calcareous spar, and also because of its small quantity. The nitric solution was poured off after two days, a greyish white powder was left, which, when dissolved in nitro-muriatic acid, gave nickel, cobalt, iron, and arsenic.

Dr. Vest directs the neutral nitric solution to be mixed with acetate of lead. In order to render my solution more nearly neutral, subcarbonate of potash was added in quantity not quite sufficient to saturate the excess of acid, and the carbonic acid driven off by heat. In this way a greyish green powder was separated, which contained nickel in abundance, with cobalt and arsenic, and a slightly acid solution remained. To this, acetate of lead was added in excess, and the mixture left in a warm place for twenty-four hours as directed; the arseniate of lead was then