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separating poisons without the liability to error, produced by the 
introduction of materials of impurity which may be present in the 
chemical re-agents used as tests, as well as av’oiding complicated 
processes. By its aid the more active crystallizable constituents of 
vegetables may be separated from moist colloidal matter, and in 
this way may be produced a new class of medicines containing the 
active principles of plants in the state of combination in which they 
exist in nature; it will, at the same time, make us acquainted with 
the special mode of combination of many proximate principles of 
which we are at present in ignorance. By means of dialysis a number 
of chemical substances have been separated in a state in which they 
have not hitherto been obtained. Such substances as silica, peroxide of 
iron, and alumina, hitherto reputed insoluble, are obtained in a state 
of solution. But the solutions are very prone to decomposition, 
depositing, after a time, these colloids in a gelatinous condition, called 
the pectous. These are facts well deserving the attention of the 
geologist, who will derive important aid from them in the explanation 
of phenomena occurring in his department of science. 
June S.—The Secretary (T. S. Noble, Esq.) read a letter 
addressed to him from Paris by the Rev. J. Kenrick, giving an account 
of the Museums of Boulogne and Amiens, and especially of their 
Roman Antiquities; of the Campana Museum at Paris, then recently 
opened, with some remarks on the state of archeeology at the present 
time in France. Under the immediate patronage of the Emperor, 
M. Renan has lately been exploring the sites of the Phoenician cities, 
but has been able to find little that illustrates the history of the coun¬ 
try, or its state of civilization during the period of its independence. 
Oct. 7. —The Rev. J. Kenrick read an account of the IMuseum of 
M. Boucher de Perthes at Abbeville, and of the progress of his dis¬ 
covery of the flint implements in diluvial gravel in the neighbourhood 
of that town. 
From early life M. de Perthes occupied himself with speculations 
on the race by whom these implements had been formed, and the ques¬ 
tion whether they had been contemporaneous with the extinct animals 
to whose fossil remains Cuvier had called the attention of the 
scientific world. His opinions for a long time met with opposition or 
neglect; he had unfortunately mixed with his facts some very doubt¬ 
ful speculations. But neither ridicule, nor neglect, nor the imputation 
of irreligion, shook his own faith. He undertook distant journeys and 
