D --— 
Organic Matter found in Sulphureous Springs. 591 
This proposition has indeed been contested by an eminent 
chemist at Montpellier, Professor Anglada, who is engaged 
in publishing an elaborate description of the thermal sulphu- 
reous waters of Roussillon *, in which he endeavours to show, 
that the baregine must be considered a chemical product, held 
in solution by the waters at the time they issue from the earth, 
and deposited by them in a flocculent form, when they come 
in contact with the external air. 
Others, on the contrary, and amongst the rest the celebrated 
Vauquelint, inclined to the opinion, that the substance in ques- 
tion had been extracted from the organic remains present in the 
rocks through which the mineral water found a passage, owing 
to the high temperature which the latter may be supposed to 
possess before it issues from the ground, just as gelatine is se- 
parated from bones by water under a high pressure, —a notion, 
unfortunately, inconsistent with the geological position of many 
of these springs, which proceed from granitic, or other rocks, 
totally destitute of all traces of organization. 
It will be time, however, to discuss the probability of these 
chemical theories, when any specimen of the substance alluded 
to has been submitted to us, in no part of which signs of an 
organic structure can be perceived: at present it may be suffi- 
cient to remark, that since, in all the situations in which I have 
collected it, the greater part at least of the mass appeared to be 
made up of a congeries of Conferve or Oscillatorie, we need not 
hesitate in ascribing the whole to the rapid growth of those or- 
ganic bodies, to which the temperature and constitution of the 
thermal waters alluded to might chance to be congenial. | 
Iam happy to be able to fortify this conclusion by the au- 
thority of Professor DeCandolle, who has assured me, that he 
* Mémoires pour servir à [ Histoire Générale des Eaux Minérales, &c.—Two vo- 
lumes have already appeared. t Annales de Chimie, vol. xxviii. 
VOL. XVI. 4G formerly 
