342 Progress of Foreign Science. 



an exhausted globe containing barytas water, did not trouble it, 

 whereas the air, admitted into a similar globe on the shore, 

 produced immediate turbidity. Nitrate of silver in solution, 

 exposed to sea air, had some chloride formed in it. Hence he 

 infers that the atmosphere of the Baltic, taken at a league from 

 the shore, contains less carbonic acid than the ordinary atmo- 

 sphere, and that it is probable the quantity of carbonic acid di- 

 minishes as we recede from the land. 2d, That the atmosphere 

 of the Baltic contains muriates in greater or less quantity *. 



VI. Economics. — In pulling down lately the vestry wall of 

 a chapel, near the Lago Maggiore, which had been built more 

 than 300 years ago, as appears by good documents, there was 

 discovered, imbedded in the mortar of the wall, three eggs, 

 which were found to be fresh. M. Cadet, one of the editors of 

 the Journal de Phai-macie, after relating this fact, states that 

 naturalists bring from America and India birds'-eggs, covered 

 with a film of wax, which, after removing the wax with alcohol, 

 may be hatched. He then talks of a man who sold eggs at the 

 public market in Paris, which had been preserved upwards of a 

 year in a peculiar composition. A slight layer of carbonate of 

 lime observed on these eggs induced M. Cadet to suspect that 

 lime-water was the preservative composition. He afterwards 

 made experiments on this point, under direction of the Council 

 of Salubrity of Paris, and succeeded in keeping eggs perfectly 

 sound during nine months and ten days, the period of the ex- 

 periments. We believe this means of preserving eggs has been 

 long known to housekeepers in this country, but it is less 

 practised than it deserves to be. If every farmer would cause 

 the eggs of his poultry to be put into a cask of lime-water the 

 moment they were laid, the inhabitants of London might enjoy 

 better breakfasts than they do at present. 



Uninflammable Clothes. — M. Gay-Lussac announced in the 

 sitting of the Academy of Sciences, 6th Nov. 1820, that linen 

 dipped in a solution of phosphate of ammonia became incom- 

 bustible. MM. Merat-Guillot, father and son, apothecaries at 

 Auxerres, have since shewn that the acidulous phosphate of 

 lime possesses the same property. In fact, linen, muslin, 

 wood, paper, straw, impregnated with a solution of this salt at 

 30° or 35° of concentration (1.26 to 1.30), and dried, became 

 absolutely uninflammable, and consequently unfit to communi- 

 cate fire. They carbonize, or char, when they are exposed to 

 a very intense flame, but the carbonization does not extend be- 

 yond the focus of heat in which they are plunged. 



* Journ. de Phnrtii. Oct. 1821, \k 461. 



