VOL. LIX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 6l7 



end of April, among the rest, were of the form of those in the line of fig. 8. 

 About the 5th of May, many of them appeared as at fig. Q; and at the latter 

 end of May, about the 20th, many of them were of the form of those at fig. 

 10: most of the variety of forms appearing at the same time. 



It was objected by some very ingenious men, to whom I had imparted this 

 discovery, that these salts might be owing to something in the water that I had 

 made use of, which, joined to the oil in the hempseed, might produce this ap- 

 pearance. To obviate this : 



Exper. 1. — Mr. E. prevailed on Mr. P. Woulfe, f.r.s. to furnish him with 

 some water that had been most carefully distilled, by a very slow process ; and at 

 the same time he procured hempseed from a different part of the town. On 

 April 30, he put an ounce of this hempseed to about 4 ounces of this distilled 

 water, into a glass cylindrical vessel, and covered it carefully with a glass cover; 

 and on the 12th of May he examined the scum, and found it more transparent, 

 but full of the crystals of salts, as represented at fig. 12. Some of the first 

 hempseed put into the same water produced much salt, but not so regular in its 

 figures; these figures, by some means unknown to him, after their crystallization 

 being broken irregularly at their ends, see fig. 13. But yet in this infusion there 

 were many of the original seminal figured salts. 



Exper. 3. — Mr. E. was determined to see what effect the hard pump water of 

 Gray's-Inn, after a month's dry weather, would have on the hempseed in infu- 

 sion ; particularly as he was persuaded from experience, that this water contained 

 a large portion of calcarious earth. Accordingly, on the 5th of May, he put an 

 ounce of the same hempseed with the last which he had obtained, into 4 ounces 

 of this pump water; and on the 17th of May he perceived the crystals, which, 

 on being put into the microscope, with the same magnifier, gave the appearance 

 represented at fig. 14. The crystals of this infusion seemed larger and flatter 

 and something different in their shape; but on examining the mucilage that lay 

 among the seeds at the bottom of the glass, he found an infinite number of the 

 same shaped crystals with those he called seminal crystals; which were likewise 

 found in the mucilage of the New-river water infusion, and in the distilled water 

 infusion among the seeds. 



Mr. E. further observes, that the calcarious earth floated in great abundance 

 among the scum of the pump water, as soon as the putrefaction was advanced; 

 which did not appear on the surface of the distilled water, and scarcely any on 

 the river water. The grains of salt produced m these experiments were about 

 the size of the finest basket salt, and of a pale yellowish colour when dry. 



Postscript. — Mr. E. found the same kind of crystals in an infusion of flax- 

 seed in New-river water, and also in wheat that has been infused in boiling hot 

 water ; but the crystals were fewer, and did not appear so soon in the flax-seed 



VOL. XII. 4 K 



