212 
perfectly known ; it was first found by some peasants, on the coast 
of Finland, in the year 1/36. Afterwards a similar substance 
occurred in one of the Swedish lakes ; and, lastly, Mr. Herman, a 
physician at Strasburgh, discovered a similar substance in the water 
of a fountain of that city. He describes it as being white, having 
nearly the resemblance of tallow ; feeling greasy, and staining paper, 
as tallow does. It flames, he observes, with much smoke, and leaves 
a pretty light coaly matter. It is brittle like tallow, but its specific 
gravity is considerably less^. 
Not unlike to the substance, thus described by Mr. Kirwan, is 
that which Mr. Jameson speaks of as having been found in the peat- 
mosses of Scotlandf . 
A substance similar to that which is here described I have been 
shown by Mr. Mawe, of Tavistock -street, in his excellent collection 
of the bitumens of Derbyshire ; in which place this specimen had 
been found. 
Humboldt, in a letter to Van MonsJ, mentions, that he had con- 
verted the phallus esculentus into a substance resembling tallow, by 
means of the sulphuric acid, and had also made soap of it. Hence 
Mr. Jameson is induced to ask — May not the mineral tallow of peat- 
mosses be a species of fungus, altered by some natural operation 
similar to what we have here mentioned. 
The close resemblance which seems to subsist between this sub- 
stance and the adipocire, the want of proof of its vegetable origin, 
and the rarity of its occurrence, which indeed corresponds with 
that of animal matter in peat bogs, incline me to imagine that its 
origin may be attributable to some animal remains, which chance 
has deposited in these parts, and which, exposed to the action of 
* Elements of Mineralogy, vol. ii. p. 47. f Mineralogy of the Shetland Isles, p. 136. 
X Annales de Chymie, vol. xxii. p. 64. 
