72 Mujcular Matter changed Into Oil. [Book VI It. 



moft abundant. Carbonic acid gas is alfo difengaged. 

 It appears highly probable, that water, which is fo 

 neceffary to putrefaction, is decompofed during that 

 procefs, and that its component principles, oxygen 

 and hydrogen, contribute to the great quantity of 

 gaffes which are produced. Oxygen feems alfo to be 

 abforbed from the atmofphere, fince putrefaction is 

 expedited by vital air. 



M. Fourcroy and M. Thouret have obferved fome 

 peculiar phenomena in dead bodies, buried at a certain 

 depth, and preferred to a certain degree from contact 

 of air : having found the mufcular flefh converted 

 into true animal fat. This muft have ariien from 

 the difengagement of the azote by fome unknown 

 caufe, leaving only the hydrogen and charcoal re- 

 maining, which are the elements of fat or oil. This 

 obfervation, M. Lavoifier remark?, may at fome future 

 period lead to difcoveries of great importance to 

 fociety, by enabling the chemift to convert into oil 

 fubftances which confift of nearly the fame principles, 

 but which are at prefent of no value. 



The decompofition of vegetable matters by fire, 

 was noticed in treating of inflammable fubflances, in 

 the chapter on carbon or the carbonaceous principle j 

 and the mode of extracting from the afhes of certain 

 plants that ufeful fubftance the fixed alkali, has been 

 alfo defcribed. 



There is perhaps no procefs of nature better under- 

 flood than that of fermentation, and yet there is not any 

 more calculated to excite our aftonifhment ; there 

 is not any inftance within my recollection fo ftriking, 

 of the furprizing change which combination produces 

 in bodies ; and it is the more wonderful, when we 

 confider, that different proportions of the fame 

 ingredients produce fluids efTentially diflinct in all 



their 



