W. Sxey.—Absorption of Alkaloids. 375 
the description of organic matter, it is impossible to credit the latter with 
producing the phenomena described. But granting that nothing except 
organic matter was administered to the solution, even then the evidence as to 
the enlargement of the “piece of undissolved gold” is exceedingly unsatis- 
factory. 
Thus it appears from the manner of stating the matter that neither the 
weight nor volume of the ‘undissolved gold” was determined, the apparatus, 
etc., evidently not being arranged for any experimental inquiry at all. If 
then no such determinations were made at the outset, they would be of no 
value as applied to the piece of gold after the process of decomposition was 
complete. Consequently the statement that the undissolved gold was increased 
two or three, or several times, its volume, as Mr. B. Smyth states, is 
guess-work, for the correctness of which we are dependent upon the power of 
the eye to realize size, the power of the memory to retain a correct and 
distinct impression as to the size and shape of the gold piece at the outset, 
-and further upon the proper working of the comparative faculty, in order 
. that this image in the memory may be correctly compared with that which 
the enlarged nugget presented to the eye when the process was finished. 
Obviously so many delicate processes are involved in this method of 
estimating size, that the results given cannot properly be taken as being 
absolutely correct, nor yet even to have such weight as to induce us to forego 
our present belief in the dispersion rather than the aggregation of gold pre- 
cipitating from solution under the circumstances stated. 
In the meanwhile, in cognizance of the tendency of gold to scatter when 
reduced from solution by organic matter, as manifested by my experiment here 
described, and by our previous experience in this matter, and on the other 
hand its tendency to agglomerate when reduced from solution by metallic 
sulphides, I cannot allow Mr. Daintree’s results, as at present known to me, 
to affect me in any speculations I may make as to the origin of gold nuggets 
in drift. 
Art. LITI.—On the Absorption of Certain Alkaloids by Aluminous Silicates. 
By W. Skey, Analyst to the Geological Survey of New Zealand. 
[Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 23rd October, 1872.] 
lr an aqueous solution of strychnia is agitated a short time with common clay 
it will be found on testing the mixture that a part or the whole of the 
alkaloid (according to the quantity used) bas been removed from solution 
and absorbed by the clay. The same effects follow when the clay is 
