158 Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 



ANALYSIS OF THE MOLARES OF A FOSSIL RHINOCEROS. 



M. E. I. Meyer, by employing the process of Wohler, found that 

 besides phosphate and a little carbonate of lime, these teeth con- 

 tained 2 - 10 per cent, of fluor. 



EXPERIMENTS ON THE YOLK OF EGGS. BY M. GOBLEY. 



The author remarks, that a German chemist of the name of John 

 was the first who carefully examined the yolk of the egg, the 

 chemists who preceded him regarding it merely as consisting of 

 water, albumen, oil, gelatine and colouring matter. John concluded 

 from his experiments, published in 1811, that the yolk of egg was 

 composed of water, a sweet yellow oil, traces of free acid, which he 

 presumed to be the phosphoric, a small quantity of reddish-brown 

 matter, soluble in aether and in alcohol, gelatin, much of a modified 

 albuminous substance, and sulphur. 



In 1825, Prout found the yolk to be composed of 54 water, 17 al- 

 bumen, and 29 oil ; and that it contained besides sulphur, phospho- 

 rus, the chlorides of sodium and potassium, the carbonates of potash 

 and soda, lime and magnesia, partly in the state of carbonates. 



Chevreul was of opinion that the orange colouring matter of the 

 yolk was due to the combination of two colouring principles, one 

 yellow, approximating that of the bile, and the other red, resembling 

 that of the blood. 



Lastly, in 1829, M. Lecanu discovered in the oil of the egg, a fat, 

 crystallizable, unsaponifiable matter, which he considered to be 

 cholestrine. 



Such, says M. Gobley, was the state of our knowledge respecting 

 the yolk of the egg when he began his experiments ; he states that 

 the substances which he obtained from the yolk are, — 



1. Water. 



2. Albuminous matter or vitelline. 



3. Oleine. 



4. Margarine. 



5. Cholesterine. 



6. Margaric acid. 



7. Oleic acid. 



8. A peculiar acid containing phosphorus, which is in fact phos- 

 phoglyceric acid. 



9. Lactic acid and extract of meat. 



10. Various salts, as chloride of sodium, chloride of potassium, 

 hydrochlorate of ammonia, sulphate of potash, phosphate of lime, 

 and phosphate of magnesia. 



1 1 . Yellow and red colouring matter. 



12. Azotized organic matter, which does not appear to be albu- 

 men. 



The oleic, margaric, and phosphoglyceric acids appear, in the au- 

 thor's opinion, to be combined with ammonia. 



