By A.E. TUTTON.
Since the publication by M. Moissan of his celebrated paper in the
_Annales de Chimîe et de Physique_ for December, 1887, describing the
manner in which he had succeeded in isolating this remarkable gaseous
element, a considerable amount of additional information has been
acquired concerning the chemical behavior of fluorine, and important
additions and improvements have been introduced in the apparatus
employed for preparing and experimenting with the gas. M. Moissan now
gathers together the results of these subsequent researches--some of
which have been published by him from time to time as contributions to
various French scientific journals, while others have not hitherto
been made known--and publishes them in a long but most interesting
paper in the October number of the _Annales de Chimîe et de Physique._
Inasmuch as the experiments described are of so extraordinary a
nature, owing to the intense chemical activity of fluorine, and are so
important as filling a long existing vacancy in our chemical
literature, readers of _Nature_ will doubtless be interested in a
brief account of them.