1820.] Analyses of Books. 379 



tube F. When the cock s is opened, the water flows into the 

 cistern C, and B becomes full of gas from A through the open 

 cock g. When the cock e is opened, the water escapes, and in 

 like manner gas takes its place from the cistern B. Here with 

 a trifling fall, the water can draw ofl' three times its bulk of car- 

 bonic acid gas from the bottom of the mine, and may be made 

 to draw off" a hundred times its bulk by increasing the number 

 of long cisterns, if the fall would permit it. When the water 

 escapes from the last cistern, the cocks are to be shut, and the 

 process is to be renewed by allowing the water to flow from the 

 reservoir into the upper cistern. A similar apparatus could be 

 placed below in the mine, and could be supphed with water from 

 the feeders. Tubes placed over the valves v v v would, in this 

 case, conduct the gas up the shaft. 



Joseph M'Sweeny. 



Article XI. 

 Analyses of Books. 



Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 



for 1820, Part I. 



This is one of the thinnest and most meagre volumes of the 

 Society's Transactions which has appeared for these many years. 

 Indeed it indicates, in pretty conspicuous language, the declining 

 health of the late President. It contains only seven papers, 

 which are as follows : 



I. A further Investigation of the component Parts of the 

 Blood. By Sir Everard Home, Bart. V.P.R.S. — The author has 

 already published two papers upon this subject, and he is of opi- 

 nion that in this paper he has made out the greater number, if 

 not the whole, of the component parts of the blood. The object 

 of a preceding paper was to show that when blood coagulates, 

 carbonic acid gas is disengaged from it, which, shooting into 

 horizontal tubes, forms vessels, which are gradually filled with 

 red blood. The only facts, or alleged facts, contained in the 

 present paper, as far as I can perceive, are : 1. That besides 

 the red globules of the blood, there are smaller globules destitute 

 of a red colour, to which the author has given the name of lymph 

 globules. These last constitute the coagulum of what is called 

 the hujy coat of the blood. The buffy coat is owing in the 

 author's opinion to the blood coagulating so slowly that the red 

 globules have time to precipitate to the bottom. These lymph 

 globules are first formed of all the parts of the blood, and make 

 their appearance in the duodenum. 2. The carbonic acid which 

 acts so notable apart in the formation of blood-vessels is supphed 



