=Another New Element.=--The mineral pitchblende is distinguished for its radio-activity, or the property it has of emitting the peculiar light-rays which have recently attracted attention. The property has been attributed to the presence of uranium, one of the most radio-active among the known metals. About a year ago the chemists M. and Madame Curie, examining the different substances in pitchblende, found among them two new radiant substances, both more active than uranium, which they called polonium and radium. Polonium was found to be closely akin to bismuth, accompanying that metal in all its reactions, but separable from it by fractionation. Radium resembles barium in its chemical reactions. Recently M. A. Debierne, examining one of the products of solution and precipitation of pitchblende, observed intensified radio-active properties in a portion containing titanium, and on further investigation found still another substance showing the principal analytical properties of titanium, but which emitted extremely active rays. While these rays were comparable with those observed from polonium and radium, the chemical properties are entirely different from those of these substances. Radium, however, is spontaneously luminous, while the new substance is not.
Some recent experiments were made by Armand Gautier on the amount of the chlorides contained in sea air. They were conducted at the lighthouse at Rochedouvres, situated about fifty-five kilometres from the coast, during and after the long continuance of a good breeze directly inshore from the Atlantic. The air was drawn through a long tube containing glasswork, and this well then analyzed. He found that in a litre of air there was only 0.022 of a gramme of chloride of sodium. Small as this quantity is, it suffices, perhaps, with the aid of the traces of sodium present, to give sea air its tonic qualities.
The second International Congress on Hypnotism is to be held in Paris, August 12 to 16, 1900, Dr. Jules Voisin presiding. The programme of discussions includes such topics as the terminology of hypnotism, its relations to hysteria, its application to general therapeutics, the indications of it and suggestions for the treatment of mental disease and alcoholism, its application to general pedagogy and mental orthopædics, its value as a means of pathological investigation, its relation to the practice of medicine and to jurisprudence, and special responsibilities arising from the practice of experimental hypnotism.