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338 ALKALINE SALTS. Externally it is glimmering; internally it is shining and vitreous. The fracture is nearly perfect conchoidal. The fragments are indeterminate angular. It is semi-transparent or transparent. It is malleable. It is soft. It is light. Its taste is pungent and urinous. Constituent Parts. Muriate of Ammonia, - 97.50 Sulphate of Ammonia, - 2.50 100 Klaproth, Beit. b. iii. s. 94. Geognostic and Geographic Situations. This mineral is said to occur, along with sulphur, in rocks of indurated clay or clay-slate, in the country of Bucharia. Uses. This salt is used for a variety of purposes. Great quantities of artificial sal ammoniac are annually export ed from this country to Russia, where it appears to bo used by the dyers. It is employed by coppersmiths, to prevent the oxidation of the surface of the metals the/ are covering with tin. It lias the property of rendering, many metallic oxides volatile, and is frequently used to separate metals from each other. Dissolved in mtr^ acid, it forms the fluid named aqua regia, employed m t solution of gold; and the pure ammonia is also obtaine from this salt. . . Observation-
