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XXXII. Remarks on a certain Kind of Organic Matter found 

 in Sulphureous Springs. By Charles Daubeny, M.D., F.R.S. 

 and L.S., Professor of Chemistry in the University of Oxford. 



Read June 7, 1831. 



The general occurrence in certain thermal waters of a sub- 

 stance which, from its general aspect, as well as from cer- 

 tain of its chemical properties, is thought to possess a claim 

 to be classed among animal products ; the medical importance 

 that has often been attached to its presence ; and the singular 

 theories by which its existence has been explained, — are circum- 

 stances, that combine to confer an interest on any observations 

 calculated to throw light upon the real nature of such a phae- 

 nomenon. 



Hence, though the present communication may, perhaps, be 

 regarded as little more than a confirmation of what has been 

 already affirmed with regard to the hot springs of Aix in 

 Savoy, by Saussure*, and the cold sulphureous ones of this 

 country, by Dillwynt, — yet the additional evidence to the same 

 effect which I have to offer, derived from an examination of 

 certain thermal waters in France last summer, will not be re- 

 garded as superfluous, when it is recollected that, in defiance 

 of the statements of the above-mentioned naturalists, several 

 crude notions and erroneous hypotheses prevail concerning this 



* Vide Journal de Physique for 1790, p. 410. 

 t Dillwyn's British Conferva, p. 54. 



deposit. 



