clé von Leuten verkannt zu sein, deren Liebe und Achtung man sich gern crwerben möchte. 4. Es thut mir leid, ihn beleidigt zu haben. 5. Schei ben und Meiden thut weh, sagt ein altes reutsches Volkslied. 6. Der Korf thut mir weh. 7. Es thut mir in der Seele weh, ihm nicht helfen zu können. 8. Was fehlt Dir, mein Freund, warum so traurig? 9. Es fehlt mir weiter nichts, als daß ich ein wenig verstimmt bin. 10. Sind Sie frank? 11. Ja, ich bin ein wenig unwohl. 12. Was fehlt Ihnen? 13. Ich habe Kopfweh. 14. Sie sind reich und angesehen, und doch sind Sie niedergeschlagen, was fehlt Ihnen ? 15. Es fehlt mir viel, Zufrieden beit und Seelenruhe." 16. All (Sect. XL. 6) meine Freunde, die versprochen hatten, zu kommen, waren da, nur Einer fehlte. 17. Alle Menschen fehlen. 18. Mein Bruder ist abermals fehl gegangen; statt in mein Haus, ist er in das meines Nachbars gekommen. 19. Seine Worte gereuten ihn, und er versprach, dieselben nie wieder sagen zu wollen. 20. Als dieses vor fiel, war ich nicht zu Hause. 21. Dieser Streit fiel in der Nähe meiner Wohnung vor. 22. Ich habe dem bereits Gesagten nur noch wenig hinzu. zufügen. 23. Diesem Geschenke fügte sie ein kleines Briefchen hinzu. 24. Er fügte mir vorsätzlich dieses Leid zu; teßhalb kann ich ihm nicht verzeihen. EXERCISE 145.

2.

5.

1. It pains a father to hear of the wickedness of his son. Nothing pains more than to be accused innocently. 3. It pains me that so many persons have been found killed by the last storm. 4. I am sorry that you did not find me at home. The wound which the soldier received in the contest pains him. 6. What ails you, my friend? 7. Oh, nothing particularly. 8. You look very ill, what is the matter with you? 9. I am not well, I have hurt myself. 10. He has fallen out of the window. 11. This boy lacks understanding. 12. You have been offended by me; I am sorry, for I esteem you much. 13. You dare not lack courage to encounter the contest with your enemy. 14. I lack patience to await the result of this matter.

SECTION LXXVI,--IDIOMS OF VARIOUS KINDS. Damit (therewith) is often to be rendered by "in order to, in order that, so that," etc., as :-Ich muß eilen, damit ich nicht zu spät anfemme, I must hasten, in order not to arrive too late. 3d wollte bitten, daß Sie das thäten, damit ich es nicht thun müßte (Gellert), I would beg you to do that, in order that I might not be obliged to do it.

1. Seittem since, since then, since the or that time; as :Seitzem sie in Deutschland war, spricht sie nichts als Deutsch, since she was in Germany, she speaks nothing but German. Seitdem ist er glüdlich, since then (or that time) he is happy.

2. Gefälligft, an adverb in the superlative degree, from the adjective gefällig, pleasing, agreeable, answers to our phrase "please, if you please;" as :-Wollen Sie mir gefälligst* sagen, wieviel Uhr es t? will you please to tell me what time it is? Geben Sie mir gefälligst meinen Hut, please to give me my hat.

11. Seine Kleider

1. Seitdem ich hier angekommen bin, hat sich schon Manches ereignet. 2. Seitdem er diese That begangen hat, scheint aller Friede von ihm gewichen zu sein. 3. Seitdem er fort ist, habe ich keine recht frohe Stunde 4. Seit dieser Zeit hat man nichts wieder von ihm gehört. 5. mehr. Seit meinem zehnten Jahre habe ich das elterliche Haus verlassen. 6. Seit gestern befinde ich mich nicht ganz wohl. 7. Seit dem Tode seiner Eltern irrt er ohne Heimath in der Fremde umher. 8. Seitdem er zur Erkenntniß seiner selbst gekommen ist, ist er ein ganz anderer Mensch geworden. 9. Er zog sich in aller Geschwindigkeit an. 10. In der Eile vergaß er seine Stiefel anzuziehen, und eilte in den Pantoffeln fort. waren ganz durchnäßt, deßhalb mußte er sich anders anziehen. 12. Er sezte diesen Morgen seinen Hut nicht auf, sondern seine Müße. 13. Der Diener hängte seinem Herrn nicht, wie gewöhnlich, den Mantel um, sondern er warf ihn sich selber um. 14. Bergessen sie nicht, Ihren Mantel umzuhängen, es ist sehr kalt und stürmisch. 15. Hängen Sie mir gefälligst meinen Mantel um, und sehen Sie mir meinen Hut auf, denn ich habe schon meine dicken Pelzhandschuhe angezogen. 16. Er stieg auf den höchsten Baum, damit er den König sehen könne. 17. Er war sehr eilig, damit er die Abfahrt des Postwagens nicht versäumen möchte. 18. Er erzählte mir dieses, damit ich mir ein Beispiel daran nehmen möchte. 19. Der Schüler entschuldigte sich damit, daß er keine Zeit gehabt hätte, seine Aufgabe zu lernen. 20. In großen Staaten müssen Hunderte hungern, damit Einer prasse und schwelge: Zehntausente werden gedrückt und in den Tod gejagt, damit ein gekrönter Thor oder Weiser seine Phantasien ausführe.

EXERCISE 147.

1. Will you please to give me a cup of coffee or tea? 2. Since yesterday I have felt myself not quite well. 3. Since he quitted his parental house we have not heard anything of him. 4. Since the twelfth year of my age I have not visited my native land. 5. Since he received the intelligence, he has had no peace. 6. In order that my friend may not come in vain, I shall stop at home. 7. I have not seen my friend since he arrived from Germany. 8. Instead of putting on his boots, he went out in his slippers. 9. Tell your friend, if you please, he may visit us at any time. 10. Why does he not take advantage of his youth, in order to acquire the knowledge he wants? 11. How have you been since I saw you last? 12. Finish your exercise, if you have not yet finished it, then you will not be punished by your master.

SECTION LXXVII.-IDIOMS OF VARIOUS KINDS (continued). Lieb, beloved, dear, agreeable, may, when applied to persons, be rendered (like gern with haben, Sect. XLIII. 1) "dear;" as:Ich habe ihn sehr lich, he is very "dear" to me. Applied to things, lieb with sein signifies to be agreeable, to please, etc.; as:-Dieses kleine Geschenk ist mir lich, this little present pleases (is pleasing) Es ist mir lich, daß Sie damit zufrieden sind, me, or is dear to me. I am glad (it is pleasing) that you are satisfied with it. 1. Bese auf (literally, bad upon) and böse über (bad over or to wards) signify, "ill-disposed;" the former being applied chiefly to persons, the latter to things; as :-Warum sind Sie böse auf ihn? why are you angry at him? Er ist böse über mein Lachen, he is angry at my laughing.

2. Kennen lernen (kennen, Sect. XXV. 3) signifies "to become acWollen Sie ihn kennen lernen? do you wish to quainted with." become acquainted with him? Ich habe ihn schon kennen gelernt, I have already become acquainted with him.

diplomacy. It is not so, however, with tact. This is the education of our faculties, so that they have a keen edge upon them, whereby mental vision is brightened, and nature acts with a healthy spontaneity in difficulties. Large classes of people can remember what they ought to have said, and what it would have been proper to do, hours after the emergency has arisen. They can then give you a sketch of the "position," or state of affairs, and have the key to it in their hands. But, unfortunately for them, the occasion is lost, and it becomes only a story of possibilities; the thing to be lamented being irrevocable. They see now what they ought to have seen then, and can cleverly construct an after answer which they ought to have given at the time. Tact would have laid hold on the best mental resources of the moment, and used them dexterously, however slender

those resources migre been.

A little tact often overcomes difficulties which much earnest endeavour fails to remove. Just as a tiny bolt withdrawn, a gate opens which it would have taken many strong-armed men to cast down; and a word rightly spoken, though in itself a thing little enough, does that which volumes would not accomplish at another time. Tact is in no sense difficult of attainment; it needs, however, that its pupils should dispossess themselves of any self-opinionated manners which make them contemptible and objectionable to others. If persons will persist in carrying with them an ungainly self-consciousness, a determination to be heard by every one, and to be believed in by every one, and to lord it over every one, they will soon be consigned to the limbo of unprepossessing and unpopular people, who forget that the outside world contains wiser and better people than themselves. Tact is quick to learn, quick to discern when it ought to be silent, as well as when it ought to speak. In this sense it is consistent with true humility, and with a wise recognition of individual imperfection. The victories of several of the greatest generals in history have been achieved by the sense of knowing when they were, for the time, beaten, and having the tact to retreat for the hour, and gather up their broken forces, rather than risk all upon a last struggle with superior strength; and some of the most successful statesmen have been characterised by a tact which knew how to speak right words at right seasons, who possess very slender powers of oratory indeed.

Some there are who slight tact, because of its seeming lack of superiority over the endowments of others. They never like to overcome difficulties so much by skill as by force. A victory is nothing to them unless it be achieved by a hotly contested battle; a success loses its honour unless it be the result of strong competitive forces; but in reality they are mistaken, for in quiet skill there is as much manifestation of power as there is in hand-to-hand tussles with our compeers. Some there are who not only depreciate tact, but positively despise it. They are, for the most part, what may be called plain-spoken persons; and a very offensive class they are. It is particularly obvious that they bruise people's feelings without compunction, and it is equally clear that they have a particular dislike to being themselves treated to homilies by other plain-spoken persons. They are happier as speakers than hearers! Tact! what do they care for tact? they have truth to tell, and isn't it right to tell it? With such like sophisms they smother over the fact that even truth must be spoken in love, and that the how and when to speak it are amongst the most important considerations that can occupy the minds of kind and thoughtful persons. There is a tact even in telling the most disagreeable truths, and that man is little to be envied who despises a skill which, whilst it preserves the manliness which dares to speak the truth, also preserves the gentleness which desires to spare the feelings.

Tact has no one special department of life or duty to call its own; but it has to do with all spheres of life, with trade and commerce, with domestic arrangements, with the conquest of difficulties, and with all the civil and social relations of mankind. It need not be disguised that there is a danger of tact descending to unworthy compromise and crafty management. But these are in no sense the necessary or natural uses of so valuable a gift. We may well reply to this supposed difficulty, that almost every good may be perverted, that the abuse of a faculty is no argument against its use, and that tact has its uses, wide and manifold, the whole history of mankind abundantly proves. Tact saves time and labour; it not only expedites business that has to be done, but it seizes opportunities for extending

operations into new spheres which would escape the attention of others, and, by the perception of the harmonies in character, it avoids as much as possible the unpleasant discords and turmoils of life. When, however, difficult work has to be done, and cannot righteously be let alone, tact achieves the end in the wisest and kindest way that the circumstances render possible. Depend upon it, that a true inscription over the failures of many who had glorious faculties and golden opportunities would be "Want of tact;" whilst some who had more mediocre abilities, and had a back start in the course, have distanced others in life's race, and risen above them in its rewards, by the wise and righteous exercise of a clever tact.

ONE night in the spring of the year 1307, thirty-three men met in a field, known to this day as the Grütli meadow, on a spot overlooking the Swiss lake of the four cantons, and solemnly swore to assert the common cause of the liberties of the three cantons, Schweitz, Uri, and Unterwald, and yet "to do no wrong to the Counts of Hapsburg!" These men were but the representatives of thousands more who, accustomed ever since human memory reported anything of the history of the country to share the freedom of the air they breathed, were moved to the very bottom of their hearts by the appearance of an oppression which threatened to go the length of enslaving them. What came of their vow thus made will be declared in this sketch, but let us first see what the circumstances were under which they felt constrained to bind themselves by the oath at all, and what claim the Counts of Hapsburg had to be so considerately treated in this purely non-aggressive sort of rebellion.

When, about the middle of the eleventh century, Europe in all its parts was beginning to settle down out of the confusion resulting from the overthrow of the western Roman Empire into a general state of feudalism, there was one country among the rest where the feudal conditions could not be enforced with the customary severity. That country was Switzerland. There was not found among the warrior chiefs who carved duchies, counties, and kingdoms for themselves out of the débris of the empire, one bold enough to try his hand at subjugating Switzerland for his own possession. The mountainous character of the ground, the utter absence of communication from place to place, except by paths dangerous to any but expert climbers, the unattractiveness, unrichness of the land, and the stubborn, independent character of its inhabitants, suggested to princes on the lookout to go further afield, and no one pretended to claim rights of sovereignty there. The Emperor of Germany claimed a sort of supremacy over it, but he did not practically urge it, and the people, of whom the majority hever heard of his pretension, went on without consulting him or troubling their heads about him. But though there was not any actual King of Switzerland, the country was included within the kingdom of Arles or Burgundy, and the Dukes of Burgundy down to Charles the Bold claimed lordship over it, a claim that was allowed to about the same extent as that of the emperor's was to be feudal lord paramount. In the country, however, there had established themselves many soldier chiefs, who built castles on their estates, and kept up some feudal rules, governing within their own domain almost as sovereign princes, but acknowledging for themselves allegiance to no one. Some of the ecclesiastical dignitaries came within this category. They had enormous estates belonging to their convents, and they governed as lords over such parts of God's inheritance as came under their power, though there existed at the same time in the breasts of the people a spirit of original independence which tempered the severity of the feudal régime. In the towns also the spirit of freedom burned with considerable brilliancy, at least until the aristocratic element imparted by the country nobles invaded them, and even then there were found many hundreds of men who never bowed the knee save to God only.

Chief among the lay nobles of the country were the Counts of Zahringen, Toggenburg, Kyburg, and Hapsburg; while their ecclesiastical rivals in power and influence were the Bishop of Coire, the Abbot of St. Gall, and the Abbess of Seckingen. Besides these, there were many lesser nobles who depended on the greater, or professed a sort of informal allegiance direct to the

imperial crown; but all of these, the greater and the less, had been wise in time, and had at their own solicitation become "citizens" of some one or other of the towns, which in return often conferred upon them the honour and title of their "advocate" or protector. The religious houses adopted the like method to obtain the protecting services of some great noble. The existence of the "noble" class on the basis mentioned above was not found to be inconsistent with the existence of a purely democratic class in the towns. On the contrary, the modified character of the aristocracy, the community of interests between it and the democracy, proved to be a source of strength to both parties, and a strong love of country, which was common to both classes, prevented that strength ever being used in the assumed wrong direction. By degrees the wealthier townəmen the rank, though not the title, of nobles, and extended yet farther the element of democratic aristocracy. Switzerland was not, however, a united country in the sense of being one dominion; it was not governed by any one set of laws, nor bound together by any formal ties or treaties; each town, each village, each noble, was self-governing and independent; the bond which knitted the several parts into a whole was the natural bond of necessity, which operated without any prescribed form.

The Counts of Hapsburg were the most considerable of the Swiss nobles, and by virtue of their rank were appointed "advocates" of many religious houses. They possessed large estates themselves, not only in Switzerland but on the Rhine also, so that what with their own property and that which they held in trust for the convents, they wielded a formidable influence either for good or evil. For many years this influence had never been used but for the furtherance of Swiss prosperity, and the people having learnt to love their strong counts, placed themselves to some extent in their hands; or to speak more precisely, the people of Schweitz and of part of Unterwald had made them their "advocates," an office which necessarily bestowed upon them the right to interfere in the administration of affairs, though it did not convey any proprietary or sovereign right.

Rudolph of Hapsburg had carried the fortunes of his family to their maximum height, and was possessed unquestionably of the ascendancy in Switzerland, when he was chosen by the electors to fill the vacant throne of the empire. This was in the year 1273. It so happened that at this time the right of succession to the Duchy of Austria, with several other valuable political fees, became for disposal, and the new emperor, with the consent of the other princes of the empire, gave the Duchy of Austria to his own son Albert.

Duke Albert was for some reason or other, which appears to have been warranted by facts, hated by the Swiss. He was insolent, overbearing, and disposed to plume himself upon his family grandeur and his wealth rather than upon his Swiss nationality. The Swiss held him to be not their friend, and it was with lively concern that they saw him about to succeed to his father's Swiss estates while he lived in his new duchy, uncontrolled by residence among his countrymen, and powerful to do them harm by means of his German subjects. It was probably at his suggestion that the defunct claim of the Imperial Diet or Parliament to bind Switzerland by its laws was revived during Rudolph's tenure of the throne. Certain it is that after his own election to the empire, on the death of his father's successor, Adolphus of Nassau, he tried to assert the imperial supremacy over Switzerland as part of Germany, and, abusing the privileges which, as Count of Hapsburg and as "advocate" of certain convents, he possessed, he sent imperial commissioners into the valleys of Schweitz, Unterwald, and Uri, to administer criminal justice and to act as stewards on his own and the convents' behalf. These persons were not native Swiss, but Germans who had no sympathy with the people, who despised the simplicity of their life and manners, and who made no secret of their contempt for them generally.

It was not likely such men would get on with the freeminded, high-spirited, and dominion-hating mountaineers. They did the work with which they were charged, disagreeable as it

The imperial dignity in Germany was elective, the principle of hereditary succession not being recognised. Generally a German was elected, but not always. Francis I. of France and Henry VIII. of England were both candidates in their time.

was by its nature, with studied harshness and brutal indifference to the popular feelings; they set aside the customary laws of the district, and introduced their own, which they administered in the most tyrannical fashion. The people were required to perform acts of homage to the Counts of Hapsburg which would have been reckoned degrading to "villeins" born and bred to feudalism; they were made to yield obedience to commands which were an affront to their free understandings, and to contribute towards the expense of riveting the imperial yoke upon their own necks. It was under these circumstances that the meeting took place in the Grütli meadow, and that Stauffacher of Schweitz, Furst of Uri, and Melchthal of Unterwald, bound them. selves and their friends by the simple, solemn oath to do themcolung right and the Count of hurg no wron The people

of the three districts flew to arms, and with an ease they little expected, considering the "tall talk" in which their oppressors indulged, drove the emperor's bailiffs out of the country.

This unlooked-for success did not make them too confident. They knew the power and the malice of the Duke of Austria, and that he would be likely to bring the whole force of the empire upon them. They immediately entered into a confederacy or union of the three cantons, by the terms of which each canton, while reserving its right of self-government, was bound to make common cause with the others whenever summoned to do so. They were the forest cantons, the hard, rugged, naturally independent districts, that first set an example of federation upon special, recognised conditions. Fortunately for them their enemy, Count Albert, was soon afterwards assas sinated by his nephew, so that they had leisure to consolidate their union. The prince who succeeded Albert on the imperial throne was not unfriendly to the Swiss; but Leopold of Austria, Albert's son, thinking to punish the "cowherds and dairymen' who had dared to rebel against his father, led a considerable body of troops into the forest cantons: the Swiss, however, united as one man, inflamed with anger at the assumption of lordship over them, and goaded to fury by the desperate nature of their case, met the Austrians at Morgarten, opposed untrained valour and unarmed bodies to skilled courage and armour-covered men-at-arms, and utterly defeated their enemies with dreadful slaughter (November 16, 1315).

This victory, which has been called the Marathon of Switzerland, secured the independence of the three cantons, and attracted, after some delay, the contiguous district of Lucerne, which was incorporated with the confederacy. About thirty years later Zurich, Glaris, Zug, and Berne joined the league, and these eight cantons remained till the Swiss revolution in 1830 to enjoy privileges and even sovereignty over many of the surrounding districts. Zurich and Berne were already independent and republican in their form of government before the formation of the union, but they secured additional strength not only for the maintenance of their existing power, but also for the object which they now proceeded to execute, that of curtailing the influence of the rural nobles. Small wars, having this aim in view, were carried on between the towns and the nobles, in which the latter fared badly, the wisest among them making their peace betimes by consenting to sink their rank and dignity, and to secure their property by identifying themselves as "citizens" of the dominant towns. For eighty years there was not any attempt from without to destroy the palladium of liberty which was being reared among the mountains of Helvetia. The nations had other things to do than to attend to so seemingly insignificant a place, and even the Dukes of Austria, while retaining for a time their Swiss hereditary possessions, did not find it convenient to cross swords with their co-protectors after the battle of Sempach (July 9, 1386). In this, the last of a series of encounters with the Austrians, all of which had been bloody and none inglorious for Switzerland, the Austrian knights dismounted and presented their lances as a steel hedge of pricks to the Swiss. It was necessary to break their line, and Winkelried of Unterwald, seeing no other way, commended himself to Heaven, and his wife and children to his country, and gathering as many lances' points as he could embrace, received them in his body, and so opened a way to the ingress of the Swiss with their five-feet-long swords. The Austrians were overthrown, and in the end the dukes alienated to the Swiss the lands and lordships of the Counts of Hapsburg. During this time power had become consolidated, and when the attention of surrounding nations was drawn to the country, by the prompt resentment of some injury

done to its people, by the fearless, or as it was then called, insolent, way in which the Swiss threw back a rebuke or threat, it was found that the people were a sort of human conglomerate, hard and strong flints from which fire might be struck, but against which it would be unwise to hurl oneself. Nevertheless, about the year 1440 it seemed good to the despots and autocrats of the day to undertake the destruction of the home of liberty, as being too near their own dominions to be safe. The princes of Western Germany formed an association, which had the approval of the emperor, for the purpose of subjugating Switzerland, and, the Duke of Burgundy having declined the use of his army, applied to the King of France for help. The King of France was only too glad of a pretext for getting rid of the numerous bands of adventurers who filled every one of his cities with ar. men who were the offerings and the refuse of the Anglo-French wars. He raised a large army, in which these cut-throats were enrolled, and put it under the command of the Dauphin. Away the French prince marched, and laid siege to Basle before the Swiss knew he was coming. The men of Basle defended themselves as best they could, and sent off messengers to the Swiss army for help. Help came in the shape of 2,000 men, who did not hesitate to engage an army of which the advanced guard was ten times more numerous than they. The Swiss fought with desperate valour (26th of August, 1444), and were cut to pieces on the ground where they stood; but the victory cost the Dauphin (afterwards Louis XI.) 8,000 of his best troops, and made such an impression upon him that he made peace and retired, and subsequently, when he came to the throne, he entered into alliance with his former foes.

all

In 1476 the last grand attack was made on Switzerland with the view of bringing her again under feudal bondage. Charles the Bold, the last Duke of Burgundy, proposed the task to himself, both because the Swiss were allies of his inveterate enemy, Louis XI., and because he hated the bare idea of popular freedom. With a splendid army of 36,000 men, furnished with everything necessary for the campaign, he marched into the country and laid siege to Yverdun. The garrison cut their way ont and retired to Granson, whither Charles proceeded, and having, after a desperate resistance, induced the garrison to offer to capitulate, he murdered in cold blood the governor and 200 of his officers who had put themselves as a sign of good faith within his power.

Every man in Switzerland took up arms, and when, shortly after the bloody deed just recited, the Swiss came upon the Burgundian army in the mountain passes near Neuchatel, they emote them hip and thigh to the shout of "Granson! Granson!" so that the splendid army melted like snow off the mountains. Numbers were slain in the battle or in the pursuit, and all the duke's 's camp equipage, his artillery, treasures, jewels, everything except his person, fell into the victor's hands. Charles strained every nerve to retrieve his loss. He procured money from Flanders and Brabant, melted church bells to make cannon, and hired troops from anywhere to assist him; but it was not till many weeks after his defeat that he was able to take the field, and then it was to make a gambler's last desperate throw. In May, 1476, he laid siege to Morat, the key of Berne and the door to Switzerland. He pressed the garrison so hard that they were about to surrender, when the Swiss army came to their relief. A furious battle ensued, in which rivers of blood were spilt, and in the course of which many valiant souls of heroes were freed from the trammels of the flesh. The work of Granson and Neuchatel was finished here. The Burgundian army was utterly destroyed, for the Swiss refused to give quarter. Charles fled, and from that day forth abandoned his warlike intentions against the cantons. Not they theirs against him. In January of the following year (1477) they joined the Duke of Lorraine in resisting an attack which Charles was making on his province, and on the 4th of that month they had the satisfaction of again beating their enemy at the battle of Nancy, where also the duke's dead body "larded the plain."

In the year 1499 the independence of the Swiss cantons was formally recognised by the emperor, and since that time it was never impeached till Napoleon overran the country, as he did all other countries in Europe, and revolutionised its institutions. The political constitution now in force is that which was settled in 1830, when the lesser cantons were admitted to equal rights with the greater, and certain medieval privileges and customs which savoured of injustice and obsoletism were swept away.

Thus obtained it is a dull greenish powder, slightly soluble in water, from which solution it is precipitated unchanged by salammoniac. It does not oxidise in the air, but readily with nitric acid. At a very high heat it takes fire, burning into boracic via (B203).

The other two kinds of boron are exhibited by its action on melted aluminum.

The crystals of boron are as hard as the diamond. Boracic Acid (B,O,).-At Monte Cerboli and Monte Rotondo, in Tuscany, exist fumeroles," that is, jets of steam escaping from the ground. This steam is mixed with sulphuretted hydrogen, but holds in solution free boracic acid. The vapour is directed into small lagoons, where it is condensed, and upon evaporating the water crude boracic acid is obtained, which is the chief source of the borax of commerce. This acid combined with soda is found in the tincal from Thibet, and a borate of lime and magnesia is found on the west coast of South America.

Boracic acid imparts a green tint to the flame of alcohol. Its great value lies in the fact that it imparts to its salts ready fusibility; hence in the manufacture of porcelain and in metallurgy borax is used as a flux.

The crude boracic acid, procured as above, is really the hydric borate or 311,OBO,, which is usually written H,BO.. Borax is the biborate of soda.

Boric Chloride (BC) is obtained by passing dry chlorine through a red-hot porcelain tube containing a mixture of boracic acid and charcoal. It is a gas which condenses into a mobile liquid below 18° Cent. It is decomposed by contact with water, thusBCI, + 3H ̧0 = H ̧BO, + 3HC1.

==

SILICON (SYMBOL, SI; COMBINING WEIGHT, 28). In combination with oxygen as silica it is one of the chief compornts of the earth's crust. The element may be insulated by submitting a mixture of equal weights of potassium and the fluosilicate of that metal to a red heat in a platinum crucible. Silicon and potassium fluoride are the result, and the latter is washed out by water.

Thus obtained, it is a brown amorphous powder. When heated in oxygen it becomes silicic acid.

No acid affects it except hydro-fluoric, by which action the terfluoride of silicon is formed, as was noticed, in the etching of glass.

The "graphatoid" and crystal forms of silicon have been obtained.

Silicic Acid (SiO2, silica, or silex).-It corresponds in its composition to carbonic dioxide (CO). It is found pure in quartz, when it appears as rock crystal; it is nearly pure in flint, chalcedony, agate, opal, etc., and it constitutes the main ingredient of all sandstones. Silex can only be fused by the oxyhydrogen blow-pipe. Water has no action on it; but with steam at a high temperature, it seems to be dissolved. This accounts for the concretions of silex in the throats of furnaces. However, it can be rendered soluble. If rock crystal be beated to redness, and then suddenly cooled in water, it can be easily