On the Chemistry of Food. 137 



Bryce, Jun., M.A., F.G.S., Thomas Callender, Robert Wylie, George 

 Buchanan. 



Mr. William Murray stated, that the shock of an earthquake which 

 was experienced in Perthshire on the night of the 24th ultimo, was 

 distinctly felt in Athol Place, in this city, by three members of his family. 

 The tremulous motion was accompanied with noise. Mr. Cockey stated 

 that ho also observed the motion, but heard no noise, about 12 o'clock, 



P.M. 



Mr. Liddell reported that the arrangements for the exhibition of models 

 and manufactures in the City Hall were making satisfactory progress. 



Dr. R. D. Thomson made a communication on the Chemistry of Food. 

 The views announced were founded on the idea that the destination of 

 the food is two-fold: 1st to repair the waste of the system of animals; 

 and 2d, to produce heat. All food, therefore, consists of nutritive and 

 calorifiant elements in addition to the salts. The author showed that 

 animals when placed in different circumstances, required these elements 

 to exist in different proportions to each other in the food. For example, 

 in milk, the food of grown animals, viz., of the young of mammiferous 

 animals, the relation of the nutritive or azotized to the calorifiant food, is 

 from 1 to 2, to 1 to 6 ; while by experiment he found that a full grown 

 animal at rest, a cow, for example, consumed 1 part of nutritive to 8 or 9 

 parts of calorifiant food. Arrow root, and other substances of this class, 

 where the relation of nutritive to calorifiant matter is as 1 to 24 or 25, in 

 addition to the absence of the proper salts, which have been washed at 

 neither preparation, are therefore improper food for children. He con- 

 sidered that the use of food not constituted according to such natural 

 laws, as food which was in a state of decay, predisposed to disease more 

 readily than the mere inhalation of gases from impure atmospheres. 



Mr. Smith, late of Deanston, in illustration of the views of Dr. Thomson, 

 mentioned that he had fed a number of calves with sago, in order to save 

 milk; that the animals throve well for a time on this diet, and became 

 fat; but that, as their food contained too little of the nutritive, and too 

 much of the calorifiant elements described by Dr. Thomson, they all died, 

 some from inflammation of the brain, and pleura, and all exhibiting 

 symptoms of plethora. 



Professor Gordon stated some reasons for doubting that water can be 

 decomposed by heat. 



Mr. Smith exhibited a series of thermometers arranged for the purpose 

 of determining how far the atmospheric heat penetrates soils which have 

 been thoroughly drained, soils which have not been thoroughly drained, 

 but where water is present, and more especially peat-moss soils. Mr. 

 Smith made some observations on the importance of this investigation in 

 an agricultural point of view; and stated, that the observations made by 

 means of this instrument would probably settle a dispute among practical 

 men as to the depth to which draining should be carried in the soil. 



