288 
EDITORIAL. 
deoxidizing  agency  of  organic  matter  in  contact  with  sesquioxide  of  iron  and 
sulphates,  resulting  in  the  isolation  of  the  carbon,  which  in  statu  nascenti 
might  be  capable  of  crystallizing.    The  author  remarks  : 
"The  geologists  who  ascribe  to  the  earth  an  igneous  origin,  can  adopt  no 
other  view  than  that  all  the  carbon  upon  or  in  the  earth  is  of  secondary  origin, 
and  therefore  was  not  present  at  the  period  of  creation;  for  the  reducing 
agent  of  the  iron  ores  would  not  have  remained  in  contact  with  peroxide  of 
iron  and  other  oxides  in  the  state  of  igneous  fusion  without  being  converted 
into  carbonic  acid  and  carbonic  oxide  gases,  thus  causing  the  reduction  of 
the  oxides.  Since  the  entire  group  of  unstratified  crystalline  rocks,  which, 
according  to  the  hypothesis  of  the  Plutonists,  have  been  ejected  from  beneath, 
contain  in  their  masses  no  carbon,  this  fact  must  lead  them  to  the  conviction 
that  this  substance  cannot  possibly  be  of  an  original  formation. 
11  The  foregoing  considerations  show  that  even  carbon  in  its  purest  form 
as  the  diamond,  can  only  be  regaided  as  a  product  of  the  decomposition  of 
organic  substances.  So  long,  therefore,  as  carbon  in  the  unoxidized  state  and 
bearing  all  the  marks  of  not  having  resulted  from  decomposed  organic  sub- 
stances, is  not  shown  to  be  preserved  in  rock,  we  cannot  regard  this  simple 
body  as  one  which  existed  at  the  time  of  creation.  Carbon  like  all  the  other 
simple  bodies  occurs  very  sparingly  or  not  at  all  in  the  mineral  kingdom  ;  just 
as  we  find  all  the  other  simple  bodies,  with  the  exception  of  chlorine,  bromine, 
iodine,  and  fluorine,  chiefly  in  combination  with  oxygen,  and  such  of  them 
as  form  the  chief  constituents  of  rocks  are  only  thus  combined;  so  we  find 
carbon  also  as  a  constituent  of  rocks,  only  in  the  oxidized  condi  ions  in  car- 
bonates ;  thus  we  find  it  also  in  the  exhalations,  in  waters  and  in  the  atmos. 
phere." 
"  All  the  carbon  as  yet  known  to  occur  in  the  isolated  condition,  can  there- 
fore only  be  regarded  as  a  product  of  decomposition  of  carbonic  acid,  and  it 
is  the  vegetable  kingdom  which  yielded  and  still  yields  this  product." 
"We  hope  at  a  future  opportunity  to  bring  forward  some  interesting  extracts 
from  this  work,  which  our  limited  space  at  present  precludes.  The  second 
volume  will  be  one  of  the  volumes  for  1855,  and  may  probably  be  expected 
about  the  close  of  the  year. 
What  to  observe  at  the  bedside  and  after  death  in  medical  cases.  Published 
under  the  authority  of  the  London  Medical  Society  of  Observation.  Second 
American,  from  the  second  and  enlarged  London  Edition.  Philadelphia: 
Blanchard  and  Lea.  1855. 
It  will  not  be  expected  that  a  book  with  the  above  title  will  receive  a 
critical  notice  in  a  journal  devoted  to  pharmacy,  yet  a  glance  over  the  pages 
of  this  volume  will  show,  even  to  the  unprofessional  reader,  that  the  habitual 
observance  of  its  precepts  by  the  physician,  must  very  much  conduce  to 
the  accuracy  of  medical  observation,  and  to  the  increase  of  medical  knowledge. 
On  Adipocire  and  its  formation.   By  Charles  M.  Wethekill,  Ph.  D.,  M.D. 
Extracted  from  the  Transactions  of  the  American  Philosophical  Society. 
We  are  indebted  to  the  author  for  a  copy  of  this  paper,  but  it  arrived  too 
late  for  notice  in  this  number. 
