49 



the arenaceous remains of the fish food of fowls of the Atlantic 

 islands, I alluded to the chemical process by which this solid 

 was formed. The solubility of the altered material, in water, 

 was also pointed out, the experiments on which these statements 

 were founded having been made two years earlier. At the time 

 of exhibiting some remarkably pure depositions from sea-water, 

 containing phosphate of lime, at a later meeting, want of time 

 prevented me from showing how phosphate of lime exists in sea- 

 water. 



When bones of fish and of quadrupeds are moistened with sea- 

 water, or pure water, fermentation commences in the gelatinous 

 parts of tissues present, and, under a disengagement of several of 

 the volatile oily acids and ethers, a considerable mechanical 

 change takes place in the bones. 



Similar etfects attend the changes when the bones are wholly 

 immersed in water; and if the temperature of the sun^ounding 

 air is 85*^ F., after the lapse of six or eight days, the turbid fluid, 

 containing fatty and crenic acids, holds in solution a portion of 

 phosphate of lime. A late chemical journal informs me that M. 

 Wohler, has since made the same observations on ordinary water 

 and water freed from carbonic acid, with the same results ; and 

 he deems them important to agriculturists, who can dissolve their 

 bones in water and apply the solution as a fluid fertilizer. 



Interesting as this fact of the solution of bones in sea and 

 common water is, the explanation of how it takes place has 

 called for numerous experiments, and the truths arrived at apply 

 to the explanation of other phenomena of interest. 



Bones immersed in sea-water, ordinary water, or boiled water, 

 dissolve to a very slight extent; rarely more phosphate of lime is 

 present than is due to the simple solution of bone-phosphate of 

 lime in gelatinous fluids. It is to a subsequent action that the 

 increased quantity of bone-phosphate is owing, and this action 

 arises from fermentation. The bones containing gelatine quickly 

 enter into fermentation or putrefy, and the bone-phosphate of lime, 

 consisting of three proportions of lime to one proportion of phos- 

 phoric acid, is presented to the fluid containing carbonic and 

 crenic acids. These acids unite to the lime of the bone-phosphate, 

 and separate, forming carbonate and crenate of lime. By losing 

 in this way one proportion of lime, the phosphate with two pro- 



PROCEEDINGS B. S. N. H. — VOL. VI. 4 JANUARY, 1857. 



