194 Bibliography. 



Let the whole stand in a warm situation over night, and when the pre- 

 cipitate has all subsided, filter on double equal filters, collect and wash 

 the precipitate with distilled water. After carefully collecting and 

 weighing the residuum, it may be decomposed by deflagration with 

 nitre, solution in nitric acid, and precipitation of the deutoxide of cop- 

 per by boiling potassa ; or otherwise by a current of hydrosulphuric 

 acid gas, passed through distilled water, in which the apocrenate is 

 previously suspended. Either of these methods gives a brown solution, 

 after filtering, which is apocrenic acid, and may be evaporated on the 

 air-pump, in a capsule of thin glass of known weight, and subsequently 

 weighed, subtracting the weight of the capsule. The crenic acid still 

 remains in the motherV'ater ; to obtain it, render the solution alkaline 

 by carbonate of ammonia; heat it to expel all carbonic acid, and then 

 drop in acetate of copper ; the crenate of copper falls as a greenish 

 white precipitate; treat it like the foregoing, and decompose it by 

 hydrosulphuric acid gas ; filter and evaporate as before in a thin glass 

 capsule ; a brownish yellow substance adheres to the sides and bot- 

 tom of the glass, and on drying, scales up in brilliant chips. These 

 substances, when tested as Berzelius directs, for the discovery of cre- 

 nic and apocrenic acids, give results identical with those which he ob- 

 tained. 



There are many practical and very important observations on ma- 

 nures and composts, and the use of peat in particular as a prominent 

 ingredient of composts. But we have already exceeded the space we 

 proposed to devote to this notice, — and we congratulate the State of 

 Rhode Island, as well as the author, on the great amount of valuable 

 and interesting information which well directed industry has accumu- 

 lated, in so short a time as one year. The best earnest for the con- 

 tinuance of governmental patronage to labors of this class, is found 

 in the zeal, fidelity, and usefulness of the performance. B. S. Jr. 



Yale College Laboratory, Jan. 1, 1841. 



14. History of Emhcdviing and of Preparations in Anatomy, 

 Pathology, and Natural History, including an account of a new 

 process for JEmbalniing ; by J. N. Gannal, Paris, 1838. Trans- 

 lated from the French, with notes and additions, by R. Harlan, M. D. 

 Philadelphia, Judah Dobson, 8vo. pp. 264. 



The art of embalming, as practiced by the Egyptians, has, like 

 many other arts of that ancient people, fallen into oblivion, and the 

 progress of enlightened civilization has rendered this loss of compara- 

 tively little consequence, if we view the practice only as a mode of 

 complying with the requisitions of heathen superstition. But the sci- 

 ence of anatomy has long stood in need of some mode, more efiectual 

 than any heretofore used, of preserving from speedy decay the subjects 



