The Syro-Egyptian Society, too, have heard something relating
to the same subject--a paper on Ehrenberg's examination by the
microscope of the anciently deposited alluvium of the Nile, from which
it appears that 'microscopic animals' in countless numbers were the
cause of the remarkable fertility of the soil, and not vegetable or
unctuous matters. Talking of deposits reminds me of a little fact
which I must not forget to mention--the finding of a fossil reptile in
the 'Old Red' of your county of Moray is, barring the alarm, as much a
cause of astonishment to our geologists, as was the mark of the foot
on the sand to Robinson Crusoe.
Now for a few gatherings from the continent. M. Chalambel has laid
before the Academie at Paris a 'Note on a Modification to be
introduced in the Preparation of Butter, which improves its Quality
and prolongs its Preservation.' 'If butter,' he observes, 'contained
only the fat parts of milk, it would undergo only very slow
alterations when in contact with the air; but it retains a certain
quantity of _caseum_, found in the cream, which caseum, by its
fermentation, produces butyric-acid, and to which is owing the
disagreeable flavour of rancid butter.
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