SIO Proceedings of Philosophical Societies, [Apri.1.^ 



5s water in the graves. Ambergrease is found in the lower 

 intestines of whales : he conceives it to be formed in consequence 

 of a disease in the animal, which prevents the fat from being 

 absorbed as it is formed. Fat is sometimes formed, and thrown 

 out of the human intestines. Of this Sir Everard related several 

 curious cases. He conceives that the formation of fat is owing 

 to the action of the bile on the food in the greater intestines* 

 Mr. Brande, on trying the experinientj ;ound that animal 

 muscle, digested in bile of the temperature 100° for four days, 

 acquired the smell of excrement, and v/as partly changed into 

 fat. He found that the faeces of fowls, retained in the caecum 

 for seven days, were converted into fat by the action of diluted 

 nitric acid 5 but not the faeces in the colon. He found that 

 human faeces, retained in the intestines for six days, contained 

 fat which was separated by digestion in hot water. He related 

 an instance of a child that never grew, though it look food, and 

 was not emaciated ; and which, on dissection, was found without 

 a gall bladder or biliary ducts. Hence he conceives that fat was 

 not secreted, and that fat is necessaiy to the growth of animals. 

 This curious theory throws a new light upon digestion, and 

 explains several circumstances which appeared before anomalous ; 

 as the fatty concretions in the gall bladder, which are owing to 

 the action of the bile on the mucus of the bladder. 



LINN^AN SOCIETY. 



On Tuesday, March 2d, a paper by Mr. Brown, Librarian to 

 the Society, was read, on some peculiarities in the structure of 

 seeds. All seeds have hitherto been considered as inclosed in a 

 covering; but in some, after they have come to maturity, such 

 covering cannot by any means be separated from the seed. Such 

 seeds have been called naked seeds, and they have been divided 

 into two species. Mr, Brown has observed two examples of 

 seeds, not hitherto siispected to exist, namely, seeds absolutely 

 destitute of a covering, from their first appearance till their state 

 of ripeness. 



On Tuesday the 16th of March a number of specimens of 

 rotten wood were exhibited by Mr. Sowerby, in order to illus- 

 trate the nature of the dry rot in wood, v/hich is occasioned by 

 different species of fungi. 



Part of a paper, by the Rev. Patrick Keith, was read, on the 

 cotyledoiis of grasses. The seeds of grasses, if we do not reckon 

 their outer coats, consist of three parts: 1. A farinaceous sub- 

 stance, which constitutes the greatest part of the seed, and is 

 known by the name of alhmnen, 2. A scale lying upon the 

 surface of the albumen, to which Gartner has given the name of 

 vitelbis. 3. The embryo, with a kind of sheathy covering. 

 Gijertner considered this sheathy covering as the cotyledon of the 



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