402 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS.'' [aNNO 1 767. 



there were distilled 1 drams and 3 grains of a turbid liquor, which had some 

 appearance of oiliness on its surface ; this was likewise set apart to be examined. 

 The fire was then increased for 6 hours longer, and during the last 1 hours the 

 retort was quite red hot all over, which ended the distillation. In this 3d and 

 last process the portion of liquor that came over was more turbid than the 2d, 

 and some of it, from the redundancy of its volatile alkali, was crystallized ; it also 

 contained rather more than a dram of light empyreumatic oil, very much resem- 

 bling the smell of hartshorn ; in the recipient there were also some crystals of a 

 volatile alkali. The whole of this last product weighed 3 drams and a half. 

 The caput mortuum was quite black, and weighed 10 ounces, 1 dram, and 1 

 scruple ; so that there was a loss of 4 drams and 4Q grains out of the J 2 ounces 

 of coralline. 



The first liquor that distilled slightly effervesced with spirit of salt, and 

 changed syrup of violets green ; certain proofs of a volatile alkali. The 2d and 

 3d portion effervesced strongly with spirit of salt, as did also the volatile salt 

 that came over into the receiver; evident marks of its being a concentrated 

 alkali. Here I must observe, that had this distillation been conducted in a 

 hurry, there would have been no concrete volatile alkali ; for then this would 

 have been confounded and dissolved in the first liquor that came over. 



Had there been a sufficient quantity of this coralline, I should first have pro- 

 posed to have taken off the calcarious substance, by an acid menstruum, and 

 afterwards washed the membranaceous part so dean from the acid, as not to 

 change the syrup of violets red. Then the distillation of this part alone would> 

 have afforded a much larger proportion of empyreumatic oil, and volatile alkali, 

 and but a very small quantity of caput mortuum." 



Doctor Pallas proceeds to prove that corallines cannot be animals, as the pores 

 of their calcarious substances are too minute for any polypes to harbour in. 

 These words of the doctor's seem to imply, as if the coralline substances were 

 only habitations for detached polypes, and not part of the animals themselves. 

 How this affair stands, I hope to have clearly demonstrated long before this, for 

 I have plainly seen, and endeavoured to show mankind, that the softer and 

 harder parts of zoophytes are so closely connected with one another, that they 

 cannot separately exist ; and therefore have not hesitated to call them constitu- 

 ent parts of the same body, and that the polype-like suckers are so many 

 mouths belonging to it. Now, for the smallness of the pores, which the doctor 

 has mentioned here, among the corallines, to be a contradiction to animal life ; 

 he certainly has forgot one circumstance, when he introduces the corallium 

 pumilum album (Essay Cor. t, 27, f. c.) or his millepora calcarea (Pall. Elench. 

 p. 265) as an animal, which is, that he there says, it has absolutely no pores 

 at all. 



