1870.] BROOME — ON CANADIAN PHOSPHATES. 245 



the structure : there is but httle to answer to the lime and 

 magnesia phosphates constituting the main frame-work of the 

 hard internal skeleton of vertebrata, or to those composing the 

 exoskeleton of Crustacea and lower orders. The phosphorus 

 of a plant would seem to correspond more closely to that of 

 the nervous and vascular animal tissues ; as, for example, to 

 that of the brain in man, — which amounts to 0-9 per cent, of 

 the cerebric acid, — or of the albumin and fibrin of the blood. 

 The following Table (ii), which might be greatly amplified, 

 has been compiled for the sake of comparison : — 



TABLE II. 



Phosphorus in Animal Substances. 



Ox Bone 12.25— Fremy, 



Human Bone 9.21 — Richardson.* 



Lingula ovali.s (shell — recent sp.) 17.16 — Sterry Huut.t 



Mastodon (fossil bone) 17.13 — Pratt. t 



Milk (of cow) ....0.68— Haidlen. 

 Fibrin (of blood) . .0.58— Fownes. 

 Albumin (of blood) 0.40— Mulder. 



Casein 1.42 — Mulder. 



Urine (human) . . . 1.24 — Berzelias. 

 Cerebric Acid (hu- 

 man brain) 0.90 — Fremy. 



Gastric Juice, ^ 



Saliva, I rn„„ -n 



Mucus, r Traces-Fo^vnes. 



Etc, etc. J 



From the researches of chemists and physiologists it is 

 now fully estabhshed that the element phosphorus plays a 

 most important part in the performance of nerve functions ; 

 that it undergoes many, at present, inexphcable changes 

 within the bodies of vertebrate animals ; and that various of 

 its oxy-compounds, produced by such changes, as well as the 

 phosphates resulting from the waste of the bones, are con- 

 stantly rejected from the system in a soluble condition. 



There is, therefore, in the history of the element phos- 

 phorus, a beautiful example of a complete circle of changes ; 

 and of a number of substances existing, at one time or 



* Chemical Technology, vol. ii, Article " Soluble Phosphates." 

 t First discovered by Ur. T. Sterry Hunt, who, in 1854, showed the 

 shells of Lingula to have a composition identical with the bones of ver- 

 tebrates. (Silliman's Journal [2], vol. xvii., p. 235.) 



t Report South Carolina Phosphates, 1868 About 30 per cent, organic 

 matter lost by decomposition, while the recent Lingula examined by Dr. 

 Hunt had previously lost 38 per cent, of organic matter by calcination. 



