Dr. Pearson on expectorated Matter. 325 
trials, was proved to contain phosphoric acid, and lime ; with 
traces of sulphuric acid, magnesia, iron, and perhaps silica ; 
but the chief ingredients were muriate of soda, and potash. 
6 . The curdy matter after expression (4) afforded a much 
smaller proportion of brown ash than the fusible saline resi- 
due (5). It required an intense fire for fusion in a piatina 
crucible. The fused mass did not deliquesce, but it grew 
somewhat moist on exposure to the air. It contained a much 
smaller proportion of potash than the former fused matter (5) ; 
also much less of muriate of soda, but a far larger propor- 
tion of lime and phosphoric acid with traces of sulphuric acid, 
magnesia, oxide of iron, and perhaps silica. 
7. ( a ) 15400 grains of the third sort of expectorated matter 
on exsiccation, afforded 960 grains, that is, one sixteenth of 
brittle substance, or about six per cent., and of course this kind 
of matter contained about ninety-four per cent, of water 
(§ II. 2). This dried matter was reduced to a charred state 
by exposing it to fire in a Wedgwood white crucible. In 
this process it inflamed, emitted the usual smell of burning 
animal matter, especially of bone, and swelled prodigiously ; 
at the same time a black oil was compounded rendering the 
mass soft during the inflammation. I could not distinguish the 
smell of sulphur, but there was, in one part of the burning, a 
smell, to my sense, of phosphorus. 
(6). This charred matter was kept in a state of ignition in 
a piatina crucible, till it no longer remained in a powdery 
form, but was reduced to a comparatively small bulk of a 
substance of the consistence of paste in an intense fire. By 
continuing the fire, the charge at length was fused ; and after 
being kept in a state of fusion to be quite fluid for ten minutes, 
MDCCCIX, U U 
