flO On ihe lest Method of decomposing 



table food, and with the drink of termenleil hqiior; and ft 

 is as little likely to be destroyed, as the muriate of sodaalsa 

 induced in the very name way. But our food and drink do 

 not, commonly at least, contain the soda united to a de- 

 structible acid, or an oxide. 



^< 9. It is plam, from the preceding experiments, that 

 expectorated matter belongs to the class of coao;ulable fluids, 

 and not of ge.atinizable, or, as commoi\ly as>erit'd, mu- 

 cjous fluids. It difl'ers from the coagulable fluid, strum of 

 blood, in forming a much thicker fluid with a much larger 

 proportion of water : for serum, and aUo the water of blis- 

 ters, is quite liquid, although they afford, on exsiccation, 

 one-twelfth to one-eleventh of their weight of brittle resi- 

 flue, while some kinds of expectorated matter, of the con- 

 sistence of mucilage, afford only one- fortieth of dry residue, 

 and others of the consisteu'ce of thin paste affbrd only one- 

 fourteenth of residue. 



" 10. But for the unavoidable extent of this paper, I 

 should trouble the learned Society with various other con- 

 clusions and remarks^ especially concerning ihc glnbularit'if 

 of expectorated matter, which seems to indicate organiza- 

 tion. Although Antonius Van Lewenhoeck, above a cen- 

 tury ago, discovered the globularity of the blood, and even 

 noticed it in olher animal fluids, neither he^ nor any other 

 person, as far as I know, investigated the subject in any- 

 fluid but the blood, till by Mr. Home's aeutencss and in- 

 dustry, at a Very early period of life, it was observed in 

 pus i have in this paper related, that expectorated matter, 

 especially the opaque ropy kind, >s well as the piriform, 

 is full of globules, and that, except by such agents as de- 

 stroy charcoal, they are scarcely destructible. Do these 

 spherical particles consist chiefly of organized carbonaceou* 

 ftiatter?" 



Ill* Memoir on the lest Method of decomposing the Chro^ 

 mate of Iron, obtaining Oxide of Chrome, preparing 

 Chromic Acid^ and on some Comhinalions of the Latter^ 

 By M* VAuai>ELiN *. 



W HEN I made my first experiments on chrome, I had 

 such a small quantity at my command that i* was impossi- 

 ble to vary them so as to biiiig all its properties before my 

 ?iew. 



• From AnnalM-dt Chimie^ tome Ixx. p. 70.- 



The 



