It would rather appear that the finer ruby particles dissolve first, for the tint of the fluid, ifruby-violet at the commencement, changes towards blue. One effect only seemed to show the possibility of a reversion. Filtering-paper rendered ruby by a ruby fluid was washed and dried; being wetted by solution of caustic potash, it did not change; but being heated in a tube with the alkali, it became of a grey-blue tint; pouring off the alkali, washing the paper, and then adding dilute sulphuric or nitric acid to it, there was no change; but on boiling the paper in the mixed acids there was a return, and when the paper was washed and dried it approached considerably to the original ruby state. Again, potash added to it rendered it blue, which by washing with water, and especially with a little nitric acid, was much restored towards ruby. These changes may be due to an affection of the surface, or that which may be considered the surface of the particles.
The state of division of these particles must be extreme; they have not as yet been seen by any power of the microscope. Whether those that are ruby have their colour dependent upon a particular degree of division, or generally upon their being under a certain ize, or whether it is consequent in part upon some other condition of the particles, is doubtful; for judging of their magnitude by the time occupied in their descent through the fluid, it would appear that violet and blue fluids occur giving violet deposits, which still consist of particles so small as to require a time equally long with the ruby particles for their deposition, and indeed in some specimens to remain undeposited in any time which has yet occurred since their formation. These deposits, when they occur, look like clear solutions in the fluid, even under the highest power of the microscope.
I endeavoured to obtain an idea of the quantity of gold in a given ruby fluid, and for this purpose selected a plate of gold ruby glass, of good full colour, to serve as a standard, and compared different fluids with it, varying their depth, until the light from white paper, transmitted through them, was apparently equal to that transmitted by the standard glass. Then known quantities of these ruby fluids were evaporated to dryness, the gold converted into chloride, and compared by reduction on glass and otherwise with solutions of gold of known strengths. A portion of chloride of gold, containing
