SINGULAR EXPERIMENTS. 295 



to the process of respiration not going forward. 

 In order to decide the point, Mr. Towne performed 

 the following singular experiment. 



Having selected a number of fresh eggs, as 

 nearly as he could of the same size and form, he 

 varnished them over many times with albumen, 

 i.e. white of egg, which had been allowed to stand 

 for some time in an open vessel until by evapora- 

 tion it had acquired considerable consistence: this 

 was repeated until the shells appeared completely 

 lacquered. He then with a pencil marked one of 

 them into equal sections, like the divisions in an 

 orange, and cut a piece of card to correspond 

 exactly with one of these divisions. Then a great 

 number of papers similar to this card were cut and 

 soaked for two days in albumen until they were 

 thoroughly saturated and so soft and pulpy that 

 they could be readily applied to the egg, and their 

 edges brought so close together that the joining 

 was scarcely observable. After having covered 

 the eggs in this way, and allowed them to dry, the 

 papering and varnishing were repeated four times, 

 taking care to bring the middle of each section 

 opposite the joining in the previous coating. They 

 were now covered with four thicknesses of paper, 



