FORMATION OF INORGANIC ELEMENTS, ETC. 125 
>^ v r 0FF\C 
From these experiments we find that whilst 500 grains of 
sugar, and 66.6 grains of yeast, afford, previous to fermentation, 
1.57 grains of inorganic matter; when fermented they give 
1.59 grains, an increase of one-fiftieth of a grain, or about one 
and a quarter per cent., an increase so trifling that I do not he- 
sitate to refer it to an error of experiment, and not to the for- 
mation of inorganic elements during vinous fermentation, 
which Mr. Rigg asserts is the case. I therefore conclude, con- 
trary to the views entertained by Mr. Rigg on this subject, 
that there is no formation of inorganic matter during the pro- 
gress of vinous fermentation. 
I am at a loss to offer any feasible explanation of the enor- 
mous increase of inorganic matter observed by Mr. Rigg, the 
only mode by which this could have taken place, which at 
present occurs to me, and that an unlikely one, is that suffi- 
cient precautions were not taken to prevent the introduction of 
foreign matters by securely covering the solutions of sugar and 
yeast while fermenting ; and that a quantity of dust, the con- 
stant plague of a laboratory, became mixed with his solutions, 
and thus led Mr. Rigg to suppose that the alkalies and earths 
were really formed during fermentation. I may remark that 
the paper covers with which my fermenting solutions were 
protected from dust, were so thickly covered with it, that, had 
the precaution of covering the solutions not been taken, I 
must have obtained a very considerable increase in the weight 
of the ash after fermentation, although I do not imagine that it 
would have been to the extent of fifteen or nineteen times the 
weight of the ash previous to it. 
Lond. and Edin. Phil. Mag. 
