FAMILIAR LETTERS ON CHEMISTRY. 



If a rich and cheap source of phosphate of lime and the alkaline phosphates 

 were open to England, there can be no question that the importation of foreign corn 

 might be altogether dispensed with after a short time. For these materials Eng- 

 land is at present dependent upon foreign countries, and the high price of guano 

 and of bones prevents their general application, and in sufficient quantity. Every 

 year the trade in these substances must decrease, 'or their price will rise as the 

 demand for them increases. 



According to these premises, it cannot be disputed that the annual expense of 

 Great Britain for the importation of bones and guano is equivalent to a duty on 

 corn with this difference only, that the amount is paid to foreigners in money. 



To restore the disturbed equilibrium of constitution of the soil to fertilize her 

 fields England requires an enormous supply of animal excrements ; and it must, 

 therefore, excite considerable interest to learn that she possesses, beneath her soil, 

 beds of fossil guano, strata of animal excrements, in a state which will probably 

 allow of their being employed as a manure at a very small expense. 



The coprolithes, discovered by Dr. Buckland (a discovery of the highest interest 

 to Geology,) are these excrements; and it seems extremely probable that in these 

 strata England possesses the means of supplying the place of recent bones, and, 

 therefore, the principal conditions of improving agriculture of restoring and 

 exalting the fertility of her fields. 



In the autumn of 1842, Dr. Buckland pointed out to me a bed of coprolithes in 

 the neighborhood of Clifton, from half to one foot thick, enclosed in a limestone 

 formation, extending as a brown stripe in the rocks,, for miles along the banks of 

 the Severn. The limestone marl, of Lyme Eegis, consists, for the most part, of one- 

 fourth part of fossil excrements and bones. The same are abundant in the lias of 

 Bath, Eastern and Broadway Hill, near Eversham. Dr. Buckland mentions beds, 

 several miles in extent, the substance of which consists, in many places, of a fourth 

 part of coprolithes. 



Pieces of the limestone rock of Clifton, near Bristol, which is rich in coprolithes 

 and organic remains, fragments of bones, teeth, &c., were subjected to analysis, and 

 were found to contain above eighteen per cent, of phosphate of lime. If this lime- 

 stone is burned, and brought in that state to the fields, it must be a ; perfect sub- 

 stitute for bones, the efficacy of which, ms a manure, does not depend, as has been 

 generally but erroneously supposed, upon the nitrogenised matter which they con- 

 tain, but on their phosphate of lime. 



The osseous breccia found in many parts of England deserves especial attention, as 

 it is highly probable that in a short time it will become an important article of 

 commerce. \ 



What a curious and interesting subject for contemplation I In the remains of 

 an extinct animal world, England is to find the means of increasing her wealth in 

 agricultural produce, as she has already found the great support of her manufac- 

 turing industry in fossil fuel the preserved matter of primeval forests the remains 

 of a vegetable world. May this expectation be realized! and may her excellent 

 population be thus redeemed from poverty and misery. 



THE END. 



