l«iS.] ' Hoyal Sodeiif. 309 



by the state of the lymphatics ; by means of which, he con- 

 ceives, the charcoal makes its way into the bronchial glands. 



On Thursday the 4th of March a paper by the late Mr. Kirby 

 Trimmer was read, on the fossils found ia the neighbourhood of 

 Brentford. This town lies on the side of the Thames, about six 

 miles west from London. The soil, as hr as it has been dug, 

 consists of live distinct beds. The uppermost is a gravelly 

 loam ; the second, sand and gravel ; the third, a calcareous 

 loam ; the fourth, sand ; and the fifth, blue clay, which passe's 

 under London, and is found every where in the neighbourhood. 

 The thickness of the clay bed is 200 feet, reckoning from the 

 surface of level ground. Its depth on hilly grounds is greater : 

 thus Lord Spencer, at Wimbleton, u'as obliged to dig a well 

 530 feet deep, before he got through the clay. The uppermost 

 bed contains no fossil remains whatever. Tiie next three contain 

 the tusks of elephants, both African and Indian, of the hippo- 

 potamus, the horns and jaws of oxen, the horns of deer, snail- 

 shells, and the shells of fresh- water fish ; but no sea animals. 

 The clay contains the fossil remains of sea animals alone; as 

 echini, shells, &c. These fossils are scattered without order in 

 the beds, and the bones must have been deposited long after the 

 death of the animals, for no two are found contiguous, in the 

 order in which they existed in the living animal. 



On Thursday the II th of March there was read a description 

 of a glass apparatus-for condensing gases, by Ivir, Austin. This 

 was a modification of a condensing apparatus formerly contrived 

 by Mr. Austin, the description of which was published in one 

 of the volumes of the Memoirs of the Royal Irish Academy. It 

 is needless to attempt any account of this apparatus, as we could 

 \ not make it intelligible without figures. 



On Thursday the 18th of March a paper was read by Sir 

 Everard Home, Bart, on the formation pf fat by the lower 

 intestines. During the investigations respecting the digestive 

 organs of animals, in which Sir Everard Home has been en- 

 gaged for many years, he was gradually led to the opinion that 

 after the chyle has been separated from the food in the smaller 

 intestines, it undergoes a new process in the larger intestines, 

 where animal fat is separated from it, and the residue is con- 

 verted into excrementitious matter. He conceives that the 

 situation of the food in the lov/er intestines is similar to that of 

 bodies which are converted into adi|)ocire in the groursd. lie 

 gives an example of this change in Shoreditch chorch-yard, 

 where several bodies were found converted into adipocire, in 

 the course of ten years. They were buried ai)out ten feet from 

 the common sewer, and about two feet below it. There is 

 always a current of water in t\\k sewer, and at new and full 

 moon it rises two feet higher than usual, and at that time there 



