Preserved Meat and Vegetables 127 



specific gravity between 2 and 2-5. 1 The metal was remark- 

 able for strength and lightness combined, and had been 

 produced by the sodium process. 



1855. At the 72nd meeting (Feb. 22nd) Dr. Playfair 

 described a method for the preservation of vegetables 

 which had been invented by Verdel. They were compressed 

 and dried, after supersaturated steam had been blown 

 through them, but they recover their form and colour 

 after being slowly boiled. 



Mr. Rennie described a method of preserving meat, raw 

 or cooked, by extracting from 50 to 60 per cent, of the water 

 and then immersing it in gelatine prepared from the bones 

 of the animal. Large quantities of both the vegetables 

 and the meat had been ordered by the Government for use 

 by the army in the Crimea. 



Mr. Gassiot exhibited a dinner fork, covered with silicon, 

 which had been deposited by the galvanic process. Mr. Grove 

 suggested that aluminium might be used for voltaic purposes,, 

 since it is highly electro-positive and not attacked by nitric 

 acid. 



Dr. Playfair mentioned that calcium had the colour of 

 gold, and if it had a different allotropic state might replace 

 that metal for electrotyping processes. 



Dr. Bence Jones read extracts from a letter by Du Bois- 

 Reymond, dated Feb. 4th, 1855, mentioning that, in Wohler's 

 Laboratory, 2 leucine had been prepared from inorganic 

 elements, together with some of the higher members of 

 the homologous series of fatty acids. Also that artificial 

 tallow was about to be made to replace the Russian. 



Dr. Miller announced that alcohol had been made from 

 defiant gas. Mr. Wheatstone remarked that this had been 



1 Probably this was from aluminium prepared by M. Sainte-Claire Deville. 

 whose first researches were published in 1854. See lor the history of the 

 metal up to 1887, J. A. Phillips, Elements of Metallurgy, s.v. Aluminium. 

 Even then the author writes, " Up to the present time aluminium has not 

 found the extensive application for which its properties would appear to fit 

 it." He states that its specific gravity varies from 2-56 after fusion to 2-67 

 after hammering. 



2 Friedrich Wohler (1800-1882) began a new era in the branch of organic, 

 chemistry by the artificial production of urea in 1828. 



