196 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



bottle well corked and covered, so as to exclude the air and preserve 

 the lime in a caustic state. In animal substances, the results in every 

 instance were very similar. With the exception of the cuticle, the 

 nails, and the hair, lime exerted on the different textures on which it 

 was tried no destructive power, but a contrary influence, and more 

 particularly a well-marked antiseptic one. Certain parts in a state 

 of incipient putrefaction, and exhaling a fetid smell, lost their odor 

 when in contact with lime and w T ater, and ceased to be putrescent. 

 Moreover, after having been fully subjected to the action of lime, they 

 resisted putrefaction, whether placed in air or kept in common water. 

 On the cuticle the action of lime is powerful, in consequence, as I 

 apprehend, of a chemical combination, being formed between them. 

 It is well known how lime has the property of rendering the cuticle 

 easily separable from the cutis vera, and how, in the art of tanning, it 

 is applied to this purpose. The effect of lime on the nails is similar 

 to that which it exercises on the cuticle, though not so strongly 

 marked. On the hair it appears to be more destructive, but in what 

 manner it acts I have not ascertained. What new arrangements of 

 the elements of animal matter may take place under the influence of 

 lime is a subject for farther inquiry. Probably the effects of lime on 

 the cuticle, nails, and hair, on which, in the arts, its operation has 

 been best known, led to the idea generally entertained concerning 

 its agency on animal substances." Dr. Davy also mentions, that it 

 has been observed that, where the bodies of dead animals have been 

 buried with and without lime, the dogs were attracted to those places 

 where the bodies lay in contact with lime, without noticing others in- 

 terred in the vicinity without lime. The explanation of this he con- 

 ceives to be, that in the one case the dogs were attracted by the smell 

 of the meat preserved by the lime, and not in the other, where it was 

 not so preserved, and where it was undergoing putrefaction. 



In regard to the action of lime on vegetable substances, numerous 

 experiments conclusively show that it does not facilitate decomposition, 

 and that, instead of promoting, it arrests fermentation. The circum- 

 stance, that no carbonic acid could be detected in lime after it had been 

 in contact with vegetable matter, both with and without water, may 

 be considered as demonstrative on this point. Lime in its solvent 

 power is probably intermediate in degree between magnesia and the 

 more active alkalies, more active even in combination, with one pro- 

 portion of carbonic acid, than the magnesia, or even lime in a caustic 

 state. The application of these results to agriculture, in relation to 

 manures, is a subject of great importance and difficulty. 



INFLUENCE OF ANIMAL CHARCOAL IN REMOVING THE ACTIVE 

 PRINCIPLES OF PLANTS FROM THEIR SOLUTIONS IN WATER. 



IT is customary to clarify the impure solutions of vegetable active 

 principles by filtering them through a deep stratum of animal charcoal. 

 The researches of Lebourdais, however, show that this cannot be done 

 without losing a large quantity of the valuable active principle ; and 

 he has even proposed to take advantage of the absorbent powers of 



