1 141 Mr. Hatchett’s Analysis of the earthy Substance 
of this primitive earth may be much doubted, and that this 
doubt can only be removed in the course of time, by other 
analyses. 
Mr. Klaproth concludes his memoir by saying, that the 
substance examined by him was undoubtedly the genuine 
austral sand, as Mr. Hai dinger had received it from Sir 
Joseph Banks, when he was in London. 
Mr. Nicholson, however, in the 9th Number of his Journal 
of Natural Philosophy, &c. (p. 410.) published on the 1st of 
December, 1797, questions much, whether the substance exa- 
mined by Mr. Klapedth was the same as that examined by 
Mr. Wedgwood ; and, after having contrasted their experi- 
ments, says, “ hence it seems fair to conclude that the two 
“ minerals were not the same, however this may have hap- 
“ pened ; and that the existence of the new fusible earth of 
“ Wedgwood stands on the same evidence as before, namely y 
“ his experiments, which have not yet been repeated, that I 
“ know of/* 
Some of Mr. Nicholson’s objections to the experiments of 
Mr. Klaproth, being founded principally on some difference 
in the external characters of the substance examined by him ? 
and the one examined by Mr. Wedgwood, are such as very 
naturally occur; but the following pages will, I believe, prove 
that Mr. Klaproth’s experiments were made on that which 
might be justly regarded as the Sydneia or austral sand. 
In 1796, the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks, P. R. S. favoured 
me with a specimen of the Sydneia , which had been lately 
brought to England; a portion of this I soon after examined, 
in a cursory manner, by muriatic acid, but did not obtain any 
precipitate when water was added to the filtrated solution. 
