36 Sir Robert Kane on the Composition and Characters 



our most eminent philosophers that I send you this " correc- 

 tion," which they conceive ought to be made public through 

 the medium of the Philosophical Journal. 

 I am, Gentlemen, 



Your humble Servant, 

 Royal Society, Somerset House, ChaRLES RichaRD Weld. 



June 11,1847. 



VI. Researches on the Composition and Characters of certain 

 Soils and Waters belofiging to the Flax districts of Belgi^miy 

 and on the Chemical Constitution of the Ashes of the Flax 

 Plant. By Sir Robert Kane, M.D., M.R.I.A.^ 



A BOUT two years since, I had the honour to submit to 

 -^■^ the Royal Irish Academy the results of some inquiries 

 into the chemical composition of the flax and hemp plants, 

 and into the chemical phsenomena of the treatment which they 

 undergo in the preparation of the ligneous fibre for the pur- 

 poses of the arts. The main object of that memoir was to 

 point out that, whilst the plant, as a whole, was rich in alka- 

 lies, earths, sulphuric and phosphoric acids, &c., the fibre, as 

 ultimately purchased in the market, was practically destitute 

 of all these materials, which therefore remained amongst the 

 substances removed from the plants during their preparation, 

 and hitherto rejected as of no use. Those results being pub- 

 lished in the Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, and 

 copied thence into various agricultural books and journals, 

 have in some degree led to the oeconomising of those valuable 

 residues ; and it is to be hoped that, according as the atten- 

 tion of farmers becomes more definitely fixed upon the real 

 and philosophical principles of the growth and composition of 

 various crops, the utilization of the different parts of plants 

 will be still more carefully attended to. 



The researches to which I have referred, involved the de- 

 termination of the elementary composition of the plants, only 

 so far as it was necessary to prove the presence and propor- 

 tional quantity of certain materials in the plant as it grows, 

 and their absence in the fibre as prepared ; but it was not my 

 design therein at all to discuss the very important questions, 

 so fundamental to vegetable chemistry and physiology, of the 

 degree within which the composition of the ashes of a plant 

 may vary; or whether there is any general expression within 

 which the constitution of the mineral elements of a plant is 

 necessarily contained ; or finally, whether there can be traced 



* Read at theAgricultural Evening Meeting of the Royal Dublin Society, 

 held on the 6th of April 1847. 



