in the Fever Hospitals of Cork. 435 
so small as not to influence the accuracy of the general’ results? 
stated. With a view to confirm the preceding statements, I 
made comparative trials upon air collected from the open atmo- 
sphere at the top of the observatory belonging to the Cork In- 
stitution ; a situation, perhaps, not less salubrious than any other 
in Cork.—The experiments were conducted in a manner pres 
cisely similar to those I have noticed ; part of the same hydrogen - 
was employed, and every precaution used to insure accuracy, 
And in every case in which the electric spark was passed through’ 
a mixture of the air under examination and hydrogen gas, in the: 
proportion of 0.30 of each, the residual air measured about 0.40. 
I collected air from Hughes’s Lane, a place notorious for the 
number of cases it had furnished of typhus; but it yielded, on ex- 
amination, the same uniformity of result. 
I have made some trials on the other gaseous constituents of 
the air collected from the different fever wards, and compared’ 
them with similar experiments on air from the observatory of the 
Institution, and I have found a very near coincidence in both se- 
ries of results. Thus, judging from the absorption that took 
place in the bottles of air from the fever wards, when placed for 
some time in water, and when agitated in this fluid, and espe- 
cially from the effects of lime water onthe air; and comparing, 
by similar trials, air collected from the atmosphere in salubrious 
situations, I could scarcely, in either case, discover a perceptible 
difference in the quantity of carbonic acid gas. In one instance, 
I filled a two-quart ground-stoppered bottle with the air from a 
large ward. at the House of Recovery, and, on the spot, I put’ 
into the bottle a small phial of lime water and well closed it.— 
After much occasional agitation and an interval of about two’ 
days, I examined the carbonate of lime formed, and compared it 
with the quantity produced under similar circumstances from the 
same bottle filled with air from the Observatory, and treated with 
lime water: and I was unable in this way to detect any appre- 
ciable difference. If this method may be relied on, I think I 
may venture to state, that the air from the ward did not con- 
tain nearly 1 per cent. more of carbonic acid gas than the-air 
from the observatory. 
After I had separated oxygen and carbonic acid gas from the 
different airs examined, I could not detect the presence of any 
other gas than nitrogen, which exhibited its characteristic nega-" 
tive properties, The want of leisure prevented me from varying 
and multiplying my experiments, so as to ascertain the exact 
proportion of the carbonic acid and nitrogen gases in the airs 5 
and it may be proper to observe, that during the time I was en- 
gaged in this inquiry, the variations of temperature, moisture, 
and pressure of the atmosphere. were very small, and -too-often: 
Ee2 connected 
