[ 3^2 ] 



water I added fait of tartar ; after this, you may fuppofe, I thought 

 no more of my alkaline broth, having got a way of obtaining 

 what I v/anted in a much more elegant manner. 



I worLD not have given you this long detail of a matter 

 now uninterefting, had you not dcfired me to write the whole 

 of what I had told you in our converfation. The only thing 

 now worth attention in the experiment I have related is, that 

 it difcovered a power in even cauftic alkaline fait to preferve 

 flefh, I may fay, incorruptible; though it has been generally 

 imagined that fuch falts would coufume it. I hav£ fome flefh 

 prepared with thefe falts in the year 1772; for, finding fome 

 bits made the year before had continued unaltered, I made fome 

 more, and laid it by to fee how long it would keep, and what 

 alterations it would undergo. I made it into a cake, and when 

 quite dry I cut it into round bits about the fize of half a crown, 

 and put them into a drawer in my defk ; I {hewed fome of them 

 to Mr. Kirwan the fummer before laft, when I had the honour 

 of receiving a vifit from him at Armagh, and a few months 

 ago I found feveral pieces in another drawer, where they have 

 lain near two and tiventy years, and remain unaltered; when 

 they are broken^ the pieces hang together by Jibres, and look like 

 a piece of plajler taken from a wall ; the fbroiis or Jlringy parts 

 of the fefh do not feem to have been corroded or diffolved by the 

 fait. 



Aftek I knew that fixed air was an atid, and fatuiated alka- 

 line fahs, I began to form conjedures about the means by 



, which 



