212 Summary Ideas on the Prolalilities 



the opinion of Fabroni might perhaps consider these experiments 

 as not free from objection, on the following accounts : 



The Florentine philosopher ascertained that by an exceedingly 

 tedious distillation of wine, the alcohol could be drawn off, and 

 consequeatlv formed, bv so low a temperature as 63. He even 

 allowed that alcohol absolutely existed in old wines, formed as 

 he supposes by lapse of time. In the experiments of Mr. Brands 

 and of M. Gay-Lussac wine was employed which must have 

 suffeied a much higher temperature than 63 : and in all proba- 

 bility is was verv old. M. Gay-Lussac, as appears by the very 

 short notice given in the Annates de Chimie, distilled the wine 

 in vacuo at G6, which is even higher than the degree which 

 Fabroni states as sufficient to form the alcohol, and at which he 

 distilled it off. In my experiments the heat was never suffered 

 to rise beyond 57 : by which means I conceived that I had avoided 

 the foregoing grounds of objection. On this account I thought 

 fit to publish the paper ; believing that, as it afforded some ad- 

 ditional evidence, it would not be looked on as superfluous. 



The coincidence between my experiments and those of M. Gay- 

 Lussac is striking: both selected the same subject of inquiry, 

 both were employed in it at the same time, both happened nearly 

 upon the same manner of conducting the investigation, and 

 both drew the same conclusions*. M. Gay-Lussac had, how- 

 ever, read his memoir to the Institute two months before I read 

 mine to the Kirvvanian Society: but the first notice of his was 

 given in the Annales de Chimie, which was not published until 

 some time after I liad given an abstract in the Philosophical 

 Magazine ; so that I could have had no knowledge of what had 

 been done before me. 



XXXIV. Summary Ideas on the Prolalilities of the Origin of 

 Aerolites. By Aumand SKGUiNf. 



V ERY few, if any, persons have seen stones fall from the at- 

 mosphere, and yet the fact is incontestable. The exact analysis of 

 these stones made by eminent chemists ; the nature and identity 

 sufficiently constant and regular of their principles, which wo 

 do not usually meet with in the places where they arc found, 

 would be sufficient of themselves to give to the existence of this 

 phenomenon a degree of probability very near the truth : but 



* In the translation of Gay-Lussac's memoir, Pliil. Map. vol. xliii. 193, 

 line 15, the woid" not," v.hich materially influences the sense, is an error 

 •t'the press: icouglit to be cancelled. 



t Annales (k C/timie, tome Ixxxviii. p. QO\t. 



the 



