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For example, in the analysis of silicate rocks, the sodium and potassium present may be obtained in the form of their chlorides and weighed together. If the weight of such a mixture is known, and also the percentage of chlorine present, it is possible to calculate the amount of each chloride in the mixture.
Thus the granite of Corsica degenerates into a powder in a time which scarcely suffices to deprive the polished granite of Heidelberg of its lustre. Some soils abound in silicates so readily decomposable, that in every one or two years, as much silicate of potash becomes soluble and fitted for assimilation as is required by the leaves and straw of a crop of wheat.
Delage at Roscorf used a liquid containing salts of magnesia and tannate of ammonia to produce the same result. In his latest book on the Origin of Life Dr. Charlton Bastian tells of using two solutions. One consisted of two or three drops of dilute sodium silicate with eight drops of liquor fern pernitratis to one ounce of distilled water.
On the other hand, there are fields in which the necessary amount of soluble silicate of potash for a single crop of wheat is not separated from the insoluble masses in the soil in less than two, three, or even more years. The term fallow, in Agriculture, designates that period in which the soil, left to the influence of the atmosphere, becomes enriched with those soluble mineral constituents.
The severe crushing to which the rock has been subjected has resulted in the conversion of the plagioclase into scapolite and also in the formation of zoisite by the characteristic alteration of the lime bearing silicate of the feldspar in conjunction with other constituents of the rock. The light mineral is finely granulated and the whole is marked by uneven extinction.
Silica is soluble in solutions of alkaline carbonates, as shown in New Zealand geysers; the solvent action being increased by heat and pressure, so also would be the silicate or sulphide of gold.
Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,500 Sugar candy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 Tartaric acid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Nitrate of ammonia . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Phosphate of ammonia . . . . . . . . . . 0.6 Carbonate of potassium . . . . . . . . . 0.6 Carbonate of magnesia . . . . . . . . . . 0.4 Sulphate of ammonia . . . . . . . . . . . 0.25 Sulphate of zinc . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.07 Sulphate of iron . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.07 Silicate of potassium . . . . . . . . . . 0.07 J. Raulin, Paris, Victor Masson, 1870.
Weekes, who claim to have produced animalcules in considerable numbers, of a species before unknown, by passing a voltaic current through silicate of potash, and through nitrate of copper. The existence of entozoa, or parasitic animals, found in the interior of the bodies of other animals, and found nowhere else, is thought to support the same doctrine. The question is, How came they there?
When all the angular fragments are of volcanic rocks the mass is usually termed a volcanic breccia. Laterite is a red or brick-like rock composed of silicate of alumina and oxide of iron. The red layers called "ochre beds," dividing the lavas of the Giant's Causeway, are laterites. These were found by Delesse to be trap impregnated with the red oxide of iron, and in part reduced to kaolin.
The latter substance, a silicate of alumina, is not found in England, and at but few points on the Continent. We have it in abundance and of the finest quality. The extraordinary steps made within five years in the arts of destruction were illustrated by the twelve-inch Armstrong rifles of England and the Essen gun, throwing a 1212-pound shot.
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