Annual Report of the Consulting Chemist for 1879. 317 
The sender of sample No. 1 informed me that he paid 55s. 
for it, but that the sweep grumbled hard at so low a price, as he 
called it. This soot, however, was poor in ammonia, and 
apparently mixed with a good deal of fine coal-ashes, and 
instead of being cheap, was scarcely worth 21. a ton as a manure. 
The second sample was genuine soot, of fair average quality, 
and worth one-half more per ton than the sample No. 1, and 
not dear at 3/. per ton ; whilst the third sample contained an 
unusually high percentage of sulphate of ammonia, and was 
very cheap at 3/. a ton. 
Bats' Guano. 
The following is the composition of an unusually rich sample 
of bats' dung : — 
Moisture 11-42 
* Organic matter and salts of ammonia 73-58 
Phosphate of lime 8-47 
t Alkaline salts 5-88 
Insoluble siliceous matter -65 
100-00 
* Containing nitrogen 8-92 
Equal to ammonia 10-83 
t Containing soluble phosphoric acid .. .. 1-14 
Equal to phosphate of lime 2-49 
Total phosphoric acid 5*02 
Equal to tribasic phosphate of lime . . . . 10-96 
This bats' guano contained fully as much nitrogen as the best 
samples of Peruvian guano ; and as it was sold in Liverpool at 
SI., it was evidently a very cheap and valuable fertiliser. 
Rice-meal. 
In dressing rice for the market, a cheap and useful feeding- 
stuff is produced, which is sold under the name of rice-meal. 
It consists of ground broken rice, and the external layers of the 
grain of rice, and has a white, or generally pale-yellowish colour. 
Commercial samples vary to some extent in colour, some being 
whiter than others, and still more so in composition, as will be 
seen by the following analyses of samples recently sent to me 
by members of the Royal Agricultural Society : — 
Good rice-meal is sold at present at from Al. 10s. to 51. a ton, 
and at that price I consider good samples cheap. 
Rice-meal, it will be seen, contains as much ready-formed fat 
