1820.] Physical Science during the Year 1819. 93 



teristic ingredient in bile has more relation to vegetable than to 

 animal substances in its properties ; and indeed approaches very 

 nearly to sarcocol or liquorice sugar. The result of a set of 

 experiments which I made to detennine the composition of this 

 substance gave me the following as its constituents : 



5 atoms carbon = 3*750 or 54*53 



1 atom hydrogen = 0*125 1*82 



3 atoms oxygen = 3*000 43*65 



6-875 100*00 



{Annals of Philosophy , xiv. 70.) 



2. Honey. — A quantity of honey which had been kept for two 

 years was observed to undergo a kind of fermentation, after 

 which grains of sugar separated from it in abundance. These 

 being examined by M. Chevallier were found to possess the 

 characters of sugar of grapes. He supposes that the honey 

 consisted originally of two kinds of sugar ; one essentially liquid, 

 and another capable of crystallizing. The fermentation having 

 destroyed the former, the second was at liberty to assume the 

 crystalline form. (Jour, de Pharm. v. 253.) 



3. Ambergris. — It is well known that this substance is found 

 floating on the sea chiefly within the tropics. Naturahsts are 

 not yet agreed about its origin. Swediaur, in a paper published 

 long ago in the Philosophical Transactions, endeavoured to 

 prove thatit was the indurated excrements of the physeter macro- 

 cephalus ; and this opinion has been pretty generally adopted. 

 Two new opinions respecting the origin of this substance have 

 been lately started founded upon its chemical nature. Bouillon 

 Lagrange, who analyzed ambergris some years ago, found a 

 substance in it which he considered as similar, if not the same, 

 with the adipocire of Fourcroy. This circumstance has induced 

 M. Virey to advance the opinion, that ambergris is formed by 

 the putrefaction of animal bodies at the bottom of the sea. (Jour, 

 de Pharm. v. 386.) But he has not produced any evidence 

 whatever in support of his opinion better than conjecture. 



MM. Pelletier and Caventou have lately subjected the adipo- 

 cirous matter of ambergris to a chemical examination, and found 

 it exceedingly similar to a substance found in biliary calculi, to 

 which Chevreul, who subjected it to an accurate examination, 

 gave the name of cholesterine. This circumstance has led these 

 gentlemen to conclude, that ambergris is probably a biliary con- 

 cretion of the species of whale in whose intestines Swediaur 

 produced evidence that it had been found. This opinion appears 

 to me by far the most probable of any hitherto advanced, unless 

 the great size of the masses of ambergris occasionally found 

 (amounting to several hundred weights) be not considered as 

 inconsistent with such a notion. 



Pelletier and Caventou have distinguished the adipocirous 

 6 



