Unpublished paper, 'An experimental inquiry into the formation of alkaline and earthy bodies with reference to their presence in plants, the influence of carbonic acid in their generation, and the equilibrium of this gas in the atmosphere' by Robert Rigg

Description

Rigg aims to show that the solid materials which compose the residual matter in the analysis of vegetable substances, made up of alkaline and earthy bodies, are actually formed during the process of fermentation, whether that process be excited artificially, by the addition of a small quantity of yeast to fermentable mixtures, or take place naturally in the course of vegetation, or of spontaneous decomposition. His experiments also tend to show that this formation of alkaline and earthy bodies is always preceded by the absorption of carbonic acid, whether that acid is naturally formed or artificially supplied. He conceives that in nature there is some compensating provision which regulates the quantity of carbonic acid in the atmosphere and maintains it at a constant proportion.

Subject: Physics / Organic chemistry

Received 17 January 1839. Read 7 March 1839. Communicated by the Rev J B [Joseph Bancroft] Reade.

Whilst the Royal Society declined to publish this paper in full, an abstract of the paper was published in volume 4 of Abstracts of the Papers Printed in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London [later Proceedings of the Royal Society] as 'An experimental inquiry into the formation of alkaline and earthy bodies, with reference to their presence in plants, the influence of carbonic acid in their generation, and the equilibrium of this gas in the atmosphere'.

Reference number

AP/23/15

Earliest possible date

January 1839

Physical description

Ink on paper

Page extent

23 pages

Format

Manuscript