183 
Ordinary Meeting, November 17th, 1863. 
E. W. Binney, F.R.S., F.G.S., President, in the Chair. 
Mr. Samuel Barton Worthington, C.E., was elected an 
Ordinary Member of the Society. 
Mr. F. R. Fail bank exhibited several specimens of Flint 
Implements which had been ploughed up near Lake Erie in 
Canada. 
A Paper was read C£ On a New Method of Producing 
Carbonic Oxide,” by Dr. F. Crack Calvert, F.R.S. 
In 1820, my learned master, M. Chevreul, published a most 
interesting paper on various colouring matters, and drew the 
attention of the scientific world at that time to the property 
which most colouring matters possessed, of absorbing oxygen 
under the influence of alkalies; and although he demonstrated 
the great advantage possessed by gallic and pyrogallic acids, 
as agents for analysing the atmosphere, by the extraordinary 
rapidity with which they absorbed oxygen under the influ- 
ence of alkalies, still this valuable observation of M. 
Chevreul remained dormant for nearly twenty years, when 
Liebig again proved with what facility air could be analysed 
by this method. I wish now to call your special atten- 
tion to this mode of absorbing oxygen in a gas mixture, 
as it is considered by many chemists to be quite as accurate 
as those methods which are based upon the employment 
of phosphorus, or metallic copper as suggested by Gay- 
Lussac; but this is not correct, for I have observed that it 
contains a serious source of erl%r, because during the absorp- 
Proceedings — Lit. & Phil. Society— No. 6 . — Session, 1863 - 64 . 
