347 



removing the lower portion of its contents, which were frozen 

 solid, one of the wprkmen, who was digging with a pick, felt 

 something burning on his hands, which were sprinkled with the 

 dirt of the soil, and he observed that his hands were smoking. 

 He, in some alarm, went and put his hands into water, but on 

 withdrawing them he again perceived the smoking to recom- 

 mence. The attention of a physician was called, but he was 

 much puzzled at the appearance. A friend of his, Prof. McGoffin, 

 of Carroll College, coming in at the time, recognized the smoking 

 substance as phosphorus, and on examining the vault, discovered 

 numerous small fragments of that substance scattered among the 

 gravel, smoking and burning with great activity. On further 

 examination, he discovered two large pieces, one of which was 

 the precise cast of an infant's femur, and all the pieces of phos- 

 phorus found were in the shape of bones. 



The phosphorus is quite pure, and cannot be distinguished 

 from that sold at the apothecaries shops. The surfaces are 

 rough, uneven, and covered with a white crust, which may be 

 rubbed off. 



Prof. Daniels supposes that the phosphorus in the phosphoric 

 acid of the bone phosphate had been in some way reduced to 

 elementary phosphorus. He says the facts here stated may be 

 implicitly relied upon as true, and he wished them to be commu- 

 nicated to this Society, and to ask the opinion of members upon 

 the subject. 



Dr. C. T. Jackson observed, that this case was so extraordi- 

 nary, and so out of the course of nature's chemistry, as to require 

 a very careful investigation. We are not aware of any instance 

 of the reduction of phosphorus from the phosphate of lime ever 

 having taken place without the liberation of the phosphoric acid, 

 or at least its conversion into super-phosphate of lime, and its 

 decomposition and distillation with carbon at a high temperature. 

 How such a decomposition could take place at the freezing point, 

 he could not conceive. Had phosphorus been thrown into the 

 vault, how could it have formed casts of the bones at a tempera- 

 ture at which it is quite solid ? Could it come from Phosphuretted 

 Hydrogen, derived from decomposition ? It is to be hoped that 

 some of the bone-shaped fragments have been preserved in water, 

 and that we may have an opportunity of inspecting them. 



