Ixii J\'*otes io IitivoAiicionj Lecture, 



but Mr. Home has put the question beyond all doubt, by the 

 dissection of a camel in London, in the year 1806 ; an ac- 

 count of which may be found in the Trans, of the royal soci- 

 ety Lond. for that year. He fully and very clearly explains, 

 from the structure of the camel's stomach, how that animal 

 is enabled to take in a supply of water for future use, thus 

 fitting him to live in sandy deserts, where supplies of water 

 are precarious or scanty. 



Dr. Russel says he knew an instance of a camel in a Bas- 

 sora caravan, remaining fifteen days without water ; but 

 none of the natives recollected a similar instance. Leo Afri- 

 canus however mentions one. Descript. Africa;, lib 9, p. 281. 

 Dr. Russel says that camels sometimes show a preference 

 for salt water. Nat. History of Aleppo, vol 2, p. 167, 168, 

 London, 1794, 4to. 



J^^ote 40. 



Chemistry also has recently lent its aid to disprove a po- 

 pular error, which has long prevailed respecting the origin 

 of the salt familiar to most persons by the name of sal am- 

 moniac, which was first brought to Europe from Egypt, and 

 was said in early times to be formed by the action of the 

 camel's urine upon the sands of the desert, near the temple 

 of Jupiter Amnion. Lemery and Pomet both give assent to 

 this notion, and the latter, in his history of drugs, gives a 

 plate of a camel in the act of discharging his urine, and the 

 mfiss of salt forming in consequence of it under his body !* 

 But the recent analysis of the urine of the camel, shows that 

 ammonia exists in it in so small a proportion, as to render 

 it impossible to suppose it could have the least agency in the 

 formation of the salt in question. 



The analysis of the urine of camels referred to, was made 

 by two good chemists, in different countries, viz. Messrs. 



* Pomet on Drugs, page 250. London, 1737. The work was originally pub- 

 lished in French, in 1694. Lemery derives ammonia from atftz-ao?, (ammos) 

 arena, saud. 



