Dark red silver ore is composed of
1 atom sulphide of antimony
1 atom sulphide of silver;
and light red silver ore of
2 atoms sesquisulphide of arsenic
3 atoms sulphide of silver.
These specimens show how much light the doctrine of sulphur salts has thrown on the mineral kingdom.
In 1828 he published his experimental investigation of the characters and compounds of palladium, rhodium, osmium, and iridium; and upon the mode of analyzing the different ores of platinum.
One of the greatest improvements which Berzelius has introduced into analytical chemistry, is his mode of separating those bodies which become acid when united to oxygen, as sulphur, selenium, arsenic, &c., from those that become alkaline, as copper, lead, silver, &c. His method is to put the alloy or ore to be analyzed into a glass tube, and to pass over it a current of dry chlorine gas, while the powder in the tube is heated by a lamp. The acidifiable bodies are volatile, and pass over along the tube into a vessel of water placed to receive them, while the alkalifiable bodies remain fixed in the tube. This mode of analysis has been considerably improved by Rose, who availed himself of it in his analysis of gray copper ore, and other similar compounds.
Analytical chemistry lies under obligations to Berzelius, not merely for what he has done himself, but for what has been done by those pupils who were educated in his laboratory. Bonsdorf, Nordenskiöld, C. G. Gmelin, Rose, Wöhler, Arfvedson, have given us some of the finest examples of analytical investigations with which the science is furnished.
P. A. Von Bonsdorf was a professor of Abo, and after that university was burnt down, he moved to the new locality in which it was planted by the Russian government. His analysis of the minerals which crystallize in the form of the amphibole, constitutes a model for the young analysts to study, whether we consider the precision of the analyses, or the methods by which the different constituents were separated and estimated. His analysis of red silver ore first demonstrated that the metals in it were not in the state of oxides. The nature of the combination was first completely explained by Rose, after Berzelius's paper on the sulphur salts had made its appearance. His paper on the acid properties of several of the chlorides, has served considerably to extend and to rectify the views first proposed by Berzelius respecting the different classes of salts.
Nils Nordenskiöld is superintendent of the mines in Finland: his "Bidrag till närmare kännedom af Finland's Mineralier och Geognosie" was published in 1820. It contains a description and analysis of fourteen species of Lapland minerals, several of them new, and all of them interesting. The analyses were conducted in Berzelius's laboratory, and are excellent. In 1827 he published a tabular view of the mineral species, arranged chemically, in which he gives the crystalline form, hardness, and specific gravity, together with the chemical formulas for the composition.