PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION B. 40] 
The gold in the foregoing experiments was, of course, merely in 
suspension, having been reduced by the phosphorus in ether prior 
to the formation of the growth. The growth seems to have been, 
in most instances, merely instrumental in removing the gold from 
suspension, although such growths will reduce or precipitate the 
gold as well as remove it from suspension. 
The growths seem to have formed much more readily in those 
cases where phosphorus in ether or alcohol was used, and this 
may have been due to the oxidation of the phosphorus to phos- 
phoric acid, the presence of which is, of course, favourable to such 
growths, and the ether and alcohol may have, in part, served as 
food for the moulds, since there was no growth, or but very little, 
when other solvents for the phosphorus, such as carbon disulphide, 
chloroform, turpentine and benzene were used. 
On 11th October, 1889, ten confirmatory experiments under 
known conditions were started. Several pint bottles of distilled 
water were put up, and a definite quantity of the ordinary 
erystallised gold chloride was added to each. The gold chloride 
solution was made by dissolving a fifteen-grain tube of the 
AuCl,,NaCl, 2H,O salt in 500 cc. of water, and 5 «ac. of 
this solution were added to each pint (20 fluid ozs.) of distilled 
water, and a small quantity of the reducing solution, or agent, 
added at the same time. The bottle was then filled up to the 
stopper with distilled water, and not re-opened until the time 
arrived for examining the growth, if any, which had formed. 
These bottles were not placed in the dark, as in the first 
experiments. 
Roughly speaking, each bottle contained ‘01 gramme of the 
crystallised gold salt. 
In addition to chemical reducing agents various organic ones 
were made use of, and as I was not in a position to obtain named 
fungi I made use of certain fungoid growths, which can always be 
obtained in a chemical laboratory, so that the experiments can be 
easily repeated, and the growths used can, if necessary, be 
identified and named. 
Amongst those used, which are all likely to be more 
pure growths, were the moulds which form sponta 
solutions of the following :— 
Magnesium sulphate 
5. Potassium tartrate. 
1. Potassium acetate , 
9. Citric acid ak ®& YY} =} 
pepe Li® ee 
3. Oxalic acid sa = 
4, : ford 
The mould (Peniciliium ?) from cheese and banana ski 
also used. Bread and other organic bodies were also employed. 
All of these were found to remove the gold, more or less, 
completely from both solution and suspension, and to become 
Z 
