380 Analyses of Books. [Nov. 



to the blood by digestion. The reader will be curious to see the 

 proof of this. Here it is : A pauper was bled one hour after 

 dinner, and his blood after its coagulation was put under the 

 exhausted receiver of an air-pump. It was enclosed in a vessel 

 from which a glass tube proceeded, and plunged into barytes 

 water. Carbonic acid gas escaped from the coagulum in tor- 

 rents, and precipitated the barytes in the state of carbonate. 

 This experiment was made by Mr. Brande. 3. In the clot of 

 blood usually found in aneurismal sacks, crystals were observed 

 which were examined by Mr. Faraday. They consisted of sul- 

 phate of lime, muriate and phosphate of soda. 



The reader will perceive from the preceding enumeration that 

 the component parts of the blood are very few, and very simple. 

 Henceforth chemists may neglect the fibrin, albumen, and 

 colouring matter ; the blood consists of red globules and lymph 

 globules swimming in a colourless liquid. 1 forgot to mention 

 the reason assigned by this author why no blood-vessels are 

 formed in the coagulum of aneurismal sacs. The carbonic acid 

 gas in this case cannot form blood-vessels, because it is carried 

 away by the circulating blood. It is rather unfortunate that the 

 blood will not on this occasion allow the carbonic acid to perform 

 its usual function. New blood-vessels in an aneurismal sac 

 would be desirable things. 



II. On the Composition and Analysis of the Inflammable 

 Gaseous Compounds resulting from the destructive Distillation of 

 Coal and Oil, xoitli some Remarks on their relative heating and 

 illuminating Powers. By William Thomas Brande, Esq. Sec. 

 R. S. Prof. Chem. R. I. — This paper is divided into two sections. 

 The object of the first section is to endeavour to prove that car- 

 bon and hydrogen unite only in one proportion constituting the 

 substance usually called oleflant gas, and that the carburetted 

 hydrogen gas of chemists is merely a mechanical mixture of ole- 

 fiant gas and hydrogen gas. I read over this section with a 

 good deal of surprise, and not a little regret and mortification. 

 Carburetted hydrogen gas was known long before the time of Mr. 

 Dalton's appearing as a scientific chemist. It had been an 

 object of experiment to Dr. Higgins, Dr. Ingenhousz, and even 

 Dr. Austin. Dr. Ingenhousz was in the habit of collecting it 

 from stagnant pools, and he published an account of his method. 

 Mr. Cruikshanks made many experiments on it, and subjected 

 it and the other gaseous compounds of carbon to the experi- 

 ments with chlorine, which Mr. Brande in this paper ascribes 

 to Mr. Faraday. I myself witnessed these experiments in Mr. 

 Cruikshank's laboratory in 1802, and unless my memory misleads 

 me, an account of them was published in the fourth or fifth 

 volume of Nicholson's Quarto Journal. As I have not a copy of 

 these volumes at hand, I cannot refer to them. It is true that 

 Mr. Dalton was the first person who ascertained that carburetted 

 hydrogen gas requires twice its volume of oxygen for combus- 



