On Paultv Rum and its Alleged Cause. 3 
aminations. In none of the samples could we dete6l any 
living organisms, although we saw what appeared to be 
the remains of dead ones. The sediments consisted of 
small quantities of mineral matters, of resinous and, or, 
of oily substances, of amorphous organic matters, and 
here and there, of the apparent remains of various micro- 
scopic organisms. These appeared to us to have been 
caught up by the resinous substances during their pre- 
cipitation by the water added for dilution. But we were 
not satisfied with the negative results obtained by the mi- 
croscopical examinations and proceeded to further experi- 
ment. It the cause of the " faultiness" in these rums had 
been due originally to the presence of the microbes in the 
enormous numbers which Mr. Veley in his letters des- 
cribed them as being in ** faulty" rums, probably some of 
the spores would remain in the sediment and when 
brought under favourable conditions would reproduce the 
organism and so give rise to " faultiness" in other rums 
which were seeded with portions of the sediments. We 
obtained samples of rums from various estates which 
when we tested them with Liverpool well w^ter were 
not " faulty," we seeded four series of these rums with 
the sediments obtained from the diluted " faulty" rums. 
Two of the series were kept exposed to the light and two 
were kept in total darkness. One series of each of these 
was in bottles having their necks closed with plugs 
of cotton wool, the other in bottles closely stoppered. 
Thus we had rums exposed both to light and air, to 
light only, to air but not to light, and to neither light 
nor air. The seeded rums were examined for " faulti- 
ness" at intervals of one week from seeding, of a fort- 
night, of a month, of six weeks and of three months 
AS 
