and corallines of Devonshire to the ‘ Pharmaceu- 
tical Times’ :—“ The calcareous sea sand which 
collects in vast quantities in many parts of the 
Devonshire and Cornish coasts is, as is well- 
known, most extensively employed by the agri- 
culturists of those counties as a manure. In 
such high estimation, indeed, is this sand held 
than many thousands of tons of it are annually 
conveyed from the sea-side to be applied to the 
lands in the interior. It is generally preferred 
by the farmers to cart away directly after the 
receding of the tide, when it is completely satur- 
ated with the sea-water, the salt of which must, of 
course, materially increase its value as a manure. 
It has been found by them to produce the most 
beneficial effects on close clayey soils, which it 
opens and renders more porous, and thus enables 
the water and atmospheric air to have a freer 
access to the roots of the plants, and, at the 
same time, facilitates the drainage of the land. 
The sand which I subjected to analysis was 
obtained from Barracaine, a small cove within a 
few miles of Ilfracombe. It contained in a 100 
parts :— 
Water : : 6 a ; 
Soluble salts, consisting chiefly of chlo- 
ride of sodium, sulphate of soda, and 0:300 
magnesia, with minute traces of potash 
0:500 
Organic matter 2 420 
Carbonate of lime 47438 
Carbonate of magnesia 0:097 
Sulphate of lime Very minute traces. 
Phosphate of lime j 025 
Oxide of iron : é : : 
Alumina é : : : Weed 
Sand, silica, and debris of slatey and gra- 
nitic rocks : : : 48°760 
100-000 
Twenty grains of the sand when burnt with 
potash and lime gave of ammonia chloride of 
platinum 0°58 grs.—0'1845 per cent. of nitrogen 
—0°2240 grs. of ammonia. The traces of potash 
observed in the soluble salts were without doubt 
derived from the decomposition of the felspar, of 
which a pretty large proportion of the substances 
insoluble in hydrochloric acid consisted. This 
felspar would become gradually disintegrated by 
the combined influences of air and moisture, and 
yield up its potash to the soil, which it would 
improve to that extent, rendering it better suited 
for the cultivation of grain crops. A fine speci- 
men of this mineral, from the same locality, was 
found upon analysis to consist of 
Silica . : : 64°109 
Alumina . F { : : 19-013 
Lime . 0:500 
Magnesia Very minute traces. 
Oxide of iron i traces. 
Potash 16°277 
99-899 
By acting upon some of the same felspar par- 
tially decomposed and in fine powder with boil- 
ing hydrochloric acid, &c., as recently proposed 
by Fownes, I was enabled to verify the statement 
SAND. 
of that gentleman with regard to the presence of 
phosphoric acid in this mineral. Evident traces 
of the acid could be detected in 500 grains of 
the powdered mineral. ‘The carbonates of lime 
and magnesia, and phosphate of lime, contained 
in the sand, are principally derived from com- 
minuted shells and corallines, as may be easily 
proved by an ocular examination. Some speci- 
mens of the corallines from Budleigh Salterton, 
on the same coast, were found to contain in 100 
grains as follows ; 
Soluble salts traces. 
Organic matter 9-040 
Carbonate of lime 84:257 
Carbonate of magnesia 1:373 
Sulphate of lime . traces. 
Phosphate of lime 0:100 
Oxide of iron -0°820 
Silica and sand 2°400 
Fluoride of calcium minute traces, 
Water and loss 2°010 
100 000 
Twenty grains, when burnt with potash and lime, 
gave of ammonio-chloride of platinum 2°17 grs— 
0:689 per cent. of nitrogen, or 0°837 gr. of ammonia. 
These corallines are now very largely employed in 
commerce in the manufacture of Barkers’ patent 
sub-marine manure, of which they form one of the 
principal constituents. Previously to mixing 
them with the sea sand, night-soil, decayed fish, 
&c. which compose the other ingredients of this 
manure, they are heated with about an equal 
quantity of common salt, which effectually dis- 
integrates them, and renders their constituents 
in a more fit state to be assimilated by plants.” 
A sand somewhat similar to that of Padstow 
is employed by the farmers of the north-east of 
Norfolk; and is much appreciated as an imme- 
diate and durable fertilizer of clay soils. An 
enormous and continually renewing deposit of 
calcareous sand, probably as much of very an- 
cient as of modern origin, and everywhere so 
comparatively free from admixture as to seem 
entirely composed of powdered shells, commi- 
nuted corallines, and dust-like organic matter, 
extends along a large portion of the great outer 
Hebridean group known as the Long Island; but 
has as yet been comparatively little used for 
manurial purposes; and, in many great tracts, 
it has even drifted itself so freely and lightly and 
prodigiously over a vast extent of the poor, thin 
surface of the low, bleak, tempest-lashed islands, 
as to annoy and bewilder the landowners in 
nearly the same way as the west-of-Ireland sand- 
drifts. A large deposit, of great value, and very 
favourably situated along a finely arable sea- 
board, extends over a great part of the south- 
western sea-margin of Ireland. A deposit, some- 
what remarkable for being on the east coast of 
Scotland, and for containing some intermixture 
of pretty large stones, both silicious and argil- 
laceous, occurs on the sea-beach, near Gosford, 
in Hast Lothian. “In the greater part of the 
