W. Skey. — 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 roe in any speculations I may make as to the origin of gold nuggets 

 in drift. 



Art. LIII. — 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.] 



If 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) has been removed from solution 

 and absorbed by the clay. The same effects follow when the clay is 



