of Edinhurgh, Session 1865-66. 643 
trials to which they were subjected were of three kinds — the air- 
pump, the ice-house, and immersion in lime-water. 
Though the results obtained were not entirely negative, yet, 
when reasoned on, and all the circumstances of the experiments 
taken into account, they have not appeared so decisive as to allow 
of the inference, in regard to arrested action, that that was 
absolute ; or as regards the changes, that these, so many and 
different, which take place in unproductive eggs, admit of any 
satisfactory explanation. 
2. On the Absorption of Substances from Solutions by 
Carbonaceous Matters, and the Growth thereby of Coal- 
Seams. By William Skey, Analyst to the Geological 
Survey of New Zealand. Communicated by James 
Hector, M.D., F.E.S.E., Director of the Geological Survey 
of New Zealand. 
Some time since, during the performance of a series of analyses 
of the Brown Coals of Otago, my attention was directed to the very 
large quantity of sulphur which several of them contained, even 
where the most careful examination failed to detect more than 
traces of sulphates or sulphides in the composition of the coal, a 
singular fact which has been before commented upon by Dr Percy 
in his work on Metallurgy. 
After several unsuccessful efforts to discover the form in which 
the excess of sulphur was present, it occurred to me, that possibly 
the sulphur might be retained to the coal in combination with 
hydrogen, by a similar absorptive power to that which charcoal 
exercises over that gas. I therefore tried whether brown coals 
had the property of absorbing sulphuretted hydrogen. Finding 
that brown coals did possess this power, the experiments were 
extended over a variety of other substances in solution, and the 
fact was established that, with certain modifications hereafter to 
be described, all mineralized carbons, such as lignites, coal, and 
graphite, possess the power of absorbing the same substances as 
charcoal, especially those soluble organic matters that occur in 
natural waters. 
