1816.) Alexander Wilson, 419. 
He likewise contemplated a work on the quadrupeds ofthe 
United States; to be printed in the same splendid style of the Orni- 
thology ; the figures to be engraved with the highest finish, and by 
the best artists of our country. How much has science lost in the 
death of this ingenious and indefatigable naturalist ! 
Mr. Wilson was interred in the cemetery of the Swedish church, 
in the district of Southwark, Philadelphia. While in the enjoy- 
ment of health, he had conversed with a friend on the subject of 
his dissolution, and expressed a wish to be buried in some rural spot 
sacred to peace and solitude, where the charms of nature might 
invite the steps of the votary of the Muses and the lover of science, 
and where the birds might sing over his grave, 
It has been an occasion of regret to those of his friends to whom 
was confided the mournfu] duty of ordering his funeral that his 
desire had not been made known to them, otherwise it should have 
been piously observed. 
ArtTIic.e II. 
Chemical Analysis of some Membranous Bodies of Animals, 
By Professor I. F. John.* 
Tue substances of which I propose to speak in this paper are the 
epidermis, nails, horns, claws, hoofs, feathers, &c. Though they 
haye beeu often examined by chemists, as is evident from the great 
number of examples which 1 have given in my Tables of the 
Animal Kingdom, published in Berlin in 1814, yet it will very soon 
be remarked that there is not a single experiment which fully comes 
up to our wishes ; for all that we at present know is that they consist 
of an insoluble substance combined with some phosphate of lime. 
Respecting the nature of this insoluble substance we are still in the 
dark, and do not know whether, according to the opinion of Four- 
croy and Vauquelin, it consists of indurated mucus; or of fibrin, 
as Scherer and Hildebrant conceive ; or of albumen, as Hatchett 
thinks he has ascertained; or, as I conceive, of modifications 
sometimes of one, sometimes of another, of these bodies. 
As to this last opinion, it will be very difficult to establish it, 
Indurated mucus, indurated albumen, and animal fibrin, may be 
distinguished from each other by striking chemical properties when 
we possess each of them in a state of purity. But the many 
striking properties which they possess in common, and the passage 
from the one to the other, so frequent in animal bodies, make it 
very difficult to distinguish them from each other, and lead to, the 
opinion that they are modifications of the same constituents, When 
* Tranglated from Schweigger’s Journal, vol, xiv, p. 302, October, 1815, 
