18520 '. ' 121 



The relation of food to respiration and nourishment in man and kindred ani- 

 mals has been well set forth by Liebig in his Animal Chemistry. According to 

 this author, an equivalent of starch is changed into fat by losing one equivalent 

 of carbonic acid, and seven equivalents of oxygen. Now, since wax bears a great 

 analogy to the fats, it may be supposed to be derived from honey in a similar manner. 

 Wax composed of cerine and myricine has a composition of C34H34O2 ; anhydrous 

 grape sugar C12H12O12, or three equivalents C36H36O36, two equivalents carbonic 

 acid, two of water, and twenty-eight oxygen ; three equivalents of grape sugar 

 would yield one of wax. That wax is produced from honey is shown by Grund- 

 laeh, (Natural History of Bees,) as quoted by Liebig. The air in the hive during 

 the formation of wax should contain an excess of oxygen, which has not been 

 shown by analysis, that 1 am aware of. 



Grundlach supposes that honey is alone necessary to the support of bees with- 

 out nitrogenized substances like pollen, and instances the fact that bees often 

 starve in April when their honey is consumed, and when they can obtain pollen 

 from the fields, but no honey. But this, perhaps, only proves that much honey is 

 necessary to their existence, owing no doubt to the large expenditure in the for- 

 mation of wax, and which is not voluntary but continually going on. For the 

 same author has observed that bees shut up and fed without a queen, will not 

 build up honey comb, although the wax laminae will continue to be secreted from 

 their bodies. If there is any analogy between bees and the vertebrata, that 

 nitrogenized compounds are as necessary to the formation of the plastic organs as 

 the non-nitrogenized are to the respiration, (and it would seem thus probable from 

 the fact that the queen bee, the fruit of whose labor requires much nitrogen, 

 lives on highly nitrogenized food,) it seems as incredible that bees should be sup- 

 ported entirely by honey, as that man should be by starch only. 



A careful examination of the relation between food and its transformation in 

 the bodies of such animals, would no doubt throw great light upon mooted points 

 in physiology ; and the many differences in the nature of the products, which 

 could no doubt be reconciled with the laws of chemistry, would in themselves 

 afford one of the strongest proofs in favor of the theories with which they 

 might agree. 



The Committee on Dr. Genth's paper, describing a new Mineral, re- 

 ported in favor of publication in the Proceedings. 



On RhodophylUte, a New Mineral. 

 Ey Dr. F. a. Genth. 



Primitive form most probably hexagonal ; sometimes small six-sided laminas. 

 Cleavage basal, eminent. Usually in masses consisting of foliated scales. 



H = 2-5. Sp. gr. (at 77*^ F.) = 2-617. 



Color of fine scales between greyish and silver-white and peach-blossom red ; 

 masses of the latter color. Streak reddish white. Lustre pearly. Subtrans- 

 parent ; subtranslucent. Scales flexible, but not elastic. The powder greasy 

 to the touch. 



Yields water in the matrass. Heated before the blowpipe, it becomes silver- 

 white, with a greyish-green tint ; small scales are rounded at the edges, and 

 become brownish from the oxidation of the iron ; dissolves in borax and micro- 

 cosmic salt, and gives in both flames emerald green beads ; by the latter reagent 

 a skeleton of silicic acid is separated; with soda in the oxidizing flame it forms 

 a yellow mass. Hydrochloric acid apparently does not act upon it ; sulphuric 

 acid acts slowly upon the fine powder, but the mineral previously heated to red- 

 ness is almost completely decomposed by it, with separation of silicic acid as 

 a jelly. 



