1852. 121 
The relation of food to respiration and nourishment in man and kindred ani- 
tmals has been well set forth by Liebig in his Animal Chemistry. According to 
this author, an equivalent of starch is changed into fat by losing one equivalent 
of carbonic acid, and seven equivalents of oxygen. Now, since wax bears a great 
analogy to the fats,it may be supposed to be derived from honey ina similar manner. 
Wax composed of cerine and myricine has a composition of C34H3402 ; anhydrous 
grape sugar Ci2H)2019, or three equivalents C36Hs6O36, two equivalents carbonic 
acid, two of water, and twenty-eight oxygen; three equivalents of grape sugar 
would yield one of wax. That wax is produced from honey is shown by Grund- 
laeh, (Natural History of Bees,) as quoted by Liebig. ‘Theair in the hive curing 
the formation of wax should contain an excess of oxygen, which has not been 
shown by analysis, that ] am aware of. 
Grundlach supposes that honey is alone necessary to the support of bees with- 
out nitrogenized substances like pollen, and instances the fact that bees often 
starve in April when their honey is consumed, and when they can obtain pollen 
from the fields, but no honey. But this, perhaps, only proves that much honey is 
necessary to their existence, owing no doubt to the large expenditure in the for- 
mation of wax, and which is not voluntary but continually going on, For the 
same author has observed that bees shut up and fed without a queen, will not 
build up honey comb, although the wax laminz will continue to be secreted from 
their bodies. if there is any analogy between bees and the vertebrata, that 
nitrogenized compounds are as necessary to the formation of the plastic organs as 
the non-nitrogenized are to the respiration, (and it would seem thus probable from 
the fact that the queen bee, the fruit of whose labor requires much nitrogen, 
lives on highly nitrogenized food,) it seems as incredible that bees should be sup- 
ported entirely by honey, as that man should be by starch only. 
A careful examination of the relation between food and its transformation in 
the bodies of such animals, would no doubt throw great light upon mooted points 
in physiology; and the many differences in the nature of the products, which 
could no doubt be reconciled with the laws of chemistry, would in themselves 
afford one of the strongest proofs in favor of the theories with which they 
might agree. 
The Committee on Dr. Genth’s paper, describing a new Mineral, re- 
ported in faver of publication in the Proceedings. 
On Rhodophyllite, a New Mineral. 
By Dr. F. A. Gentu. 
Primitive form most probably hexagonal; sometimes small six-sided lamin. 
Cleavage basal, eminent. Usually in masses consisting of foliated scales. 
H = 2-5. Sp. gr. (at 77° F.) = 2°617. 
Color of fine scales between greyish and silver-white and peach-blossom. red ; 
masses of the latter color. Streak reddish white. Lustre pearly. Subtrans- 
parent; subtranslucent. Scales flexible, but not elastic. ‘The powder greasy 
to the touch. 
Yields water in the matrass. Heated before the blowpipe, it becomes silver- 
white, with a greyish-yreen tint; small scales are rounded at the edges, and 
become brownish from the oxidation of the iron; dissolves in borax and micro- 
cosmic salt, and gives in both flames emerald green beads; by the latter reagent 
a skeleton of silicic acid is separated; with soda in the oxidizing flame it forms 
a yellow mass. Hydrochloric acid apparently does not act, upon it; sulphuric 
acid acts slowly upon the fine powder, but the mineral previously heated to red- 
ness is almost completely eccomposce by it, with separation of silicie acid as 
a jelly. 
