402 Vivianite in Human Bones: 
Arr. XLV.—On the Presence of Vivianite in Human Bones; 
5 y J. Nicxues. 
In the cemetery at Eumont, a village in the Department of 
La Meurthe, the earth of which is very ferruginous, there has 
been found among the bones, the accumulation of several centu- 
ries, two arm bones of a female, a cubitus and a radius, having a 
deep bluish green color. One of these bones having been broken 
through curiosity, it was discovered that the color was general 
through its whole thickness. This bone having been sent me, 
I have observed the following facts. 
The color was decidedly greenish; but as the osseous paste 
was yellow, it was evident that the coloring matter was blue. 
row, brilliant points which were distinctly crystalline. With a 
microscope, they were found to be rhomboidal prisms apparently 
oblique, some of them surmounted with a horizontal prism, and 
others with octahedral planes having the terminal planes applied 
to the two extremities of the macrodiagonal. They were too 
small for measurement. But by chemical methods, they were 
found to have all the characters of phosphate of iron. Calcined 
with bicarbonate of soda, the acid and oxyd were readily separa- 
; and on treating the calcined product with distilled water, I 
obtained a residue of oxyd of iron and an alkaline solution, which 
on neutralizing it, afforded an abundant precipitate with ammo- 
nia, chlorhydrate of ammonia and sulphate of magnesia. This 
was therefore phosphoric acid, and the substance a crystalline 
phosphate of iron, which ean be only Vivianite. ‘The ence 
of the bones in the ferruginous water explains its formation, the 
bones affording the phosphoric acid from the phosphate of lime. 
This fact recalls to mind an observation made some years since 
by Schlossberger, who detected in the stomach of an ostrich that 
had died suddenly, two nails surrounded with an unctuous mate- 
rial of a bluish color, which coloring matter the author found 
to consist of a phosphate of iron, having the composition of 
Vivianite. 
The bones mentioned above were in a perfect state of preser- 
vation, and afforded a skeleton of gelatine when treated with 
