40 Action of Lime on Animal and Vegetable Substances. 
touched. The lime was examined both before and after for carbonic 
acid, and it was quite free from it at the commencement of the ex- 
periment, as it was also at the conclusion; it dissolved in an acid with- 
out the slightest effervescence, and appeared to be quite unaltered. 
These results appear to me conclusive that lime does not promote 
the decomposition of vegetable matter ; and, as I have before men- 
tioned, that, instead of promoting, it arrests its fermentation. The 
circumstance that no carbonic acid could be detected in the lime after 
having been in contact with vegetable matter—both with and without 
water—lI apprehend may be considered as demonstrative on this point. 
Whether lime has any solvent power on vegetable matter, apart 
from the supposed one of exciting fermentation, is a distinct question, 
From what I have witnessed in carrying on these experiments, I 
infer that it has, in a slight degree at least, in combination with 
water. The extract obtained by evaporating the lime-water which 
was in contact with the vegetable matter, was perhaps indicative of 
this, especially in the instance of the sawdust, as was also the softened 
state of the leaves and flowers, falling to pieces on being shaken; and 
confirmation, perhaps, is afforded in the results of two comparative 
experiments made on the same leaves and flower, with magnesia and 
water and a solution of carbonate of potash (the old subcarbonate). 
Both mixtures were made on the 23d June 1886, and they were 
both examined on the 4th November 1838. There was a marked 
contrast between them. The leaves and flower, with the magnesia 
water, retained their form unaltered, and their texture did not ap- 
pear to be materially weakened ; they bore being shaken in the bottle 
without falling to pieces, and the water was only just perceptibly 
coloured greenish, and the magnesia brownish, the leaves retaining 
their colour unimpaired. The leaves and flowers, on the contrary, in 
the alkaline solution, were reduced to small pieces, and seemed to be 
wasted and deprived very much of their colouring matter, and in a 
pultaceous state ; the solution was of a dark olive green ; evaporated, 
it yielded a residue abounding in colouring matter. Lime in its sol- 
vent power, is probably intermediate in degree between magnesia and 
the more active alkali, more active even in combination, with one 
proportion of carbonic acid, than the magnesia, or even lime in a 
caustic state. 
The application of the preceding results to agriculture, in relation 
to manures, I must decline discussing ; the subject is one of too much 
importance and magnitude and difficulty to be lightly entered on. 
