234 Annals of the Philosophical Club 



1884 (page 227). A few days since Mr. John Young, of the 

 War Office, who had recently made a voyage round the 

 world in his yacht Golden Fleece, placed in his hands a mass 

 about 18 inches by 12 inches, consisting of some 25 nests 

 which had been detached in his presence from a lofty over- 

 hanging cliff (hardly to be called a cave). Some of the 

 outside nests contained eggs or young ; others, more or 

 less incrusted by these, were evidently much older, but 

 nearly all the nests are overspread and permeated by fronds 

 or fibres of (? algae or lichen), in some cases to such an 

 extent as to hide them. He had requested Mr. J. P. Green 

 to examine the mass and determine, if possible, the nature 

 of the vegetable growth and its relation to the material of 

 the nest, which is made by a species of Collocalia. 1 



March i5th, 368th meeting. Sir W. Grove described 

 some experiments which he made at the Royal Institution 

 about the year 1846, when the slow deposit of crystals by 

 the voltaic arc was attracting attention. By this means 

 M. Depretz was reported to have obtained crystallized 

 carbon, though not in a transparent form. It occurred to 

 him that, as strong sulphuric acid abstracts the water from 

 moist sugar and leaves behind a residue of black amorphous 

 carbon, so if pure white sugar were added to a weak solution 

 of sulphuric acid, the result under voltaic action might be 

 the crystallization of carbon in a transparent form. Employ- 

 ing a battery and apparatus, which he described, he used 

 three tubes, hermetically sealed. Two were filled with a 

 solution of white sugar to which a few drops (not the same 

 number) of sulphuric acid had been added, but he could not 

 remember whether the third tube contained any. Each 

 tube was then connected with a battery, so that the current 

 passed through them in a vertical direction, and they were 

 left in a dark vault for about 10 months. The negative 

 wires were then found in all three cases wholly coated with 

 a black deposit, which was spangled from top to bottom 



1 Nearly allied to the British swift (Cypselus), Mr. Green found the 

 material to be closely related to mucin. It is secreted by the salivary 

 glands. See Newton, Dictionary of Birds, s v Swift, and Chambers' 

 Encyclopaedia, s.v. Edible Birds' -Nests. 



