(_Read before the Chemical Discussion Society._) I have recently made some experiments with oil of lemons, of which the following is a short account:-- Being constantly annoyed by the deposit and alteration in my essence of lemons, I have tried various methods of remedying the inconvenience. I first tried redistilling it, but besides the loss consequent on distilling small quantities, the flavor is thereby impaired. As the oil became brighter when heated, I anticipated that all its precipitable matter would be thrown down at a low temperature, and I applied a freezing mixture, keeping the oil at zero for some hours. No such change, however, took place. The plan which I ultimately decided upon as the best which I had arrived at, was to shake up the oil with a little boiling water, and to leave the water in the bottle; a mucilaginous preparation forms on the top of the water, and acquires a certain tenacity, so that the oil may be poured off to nearly the last, without disturbing the deposit. Perhaps cold water would answer equally well, were it carefully agitated with the oil and allowed some time to settle. A consideration of its origin and constitution, indeed, strengthens this opinion; for although lemon otto is obtained both by distillation and expression, that which is usually found in commerce is prepared by removing the "flavedo" of lemons with a rasp, and afterwards expressing it in a hair sack, allowing the filtrate to stand, that it may deposit some of its impurities, decanting and filtering. Thus obtained it still contains a certain amount of mucilaginous matter, which undergoes spontaneous decomposition, and thus (acting, in short, as a ferment) accelerates a similar change in the oil itself. If this view of its decomposition be a correct one, we evidently, in removing this matter by means of the water, get rid of a great source of alteration, and attain the same result as we should by distillation, without its waste or deterioration in flavor. I am, however, aware that some consider the deposit to be modified resin.[H] Some curious experiments of Saussure have shown that volatile oils absorb oxygen immediately they have been drawn from the plant, and are partially converted into a resin, which remains dissolved in the remainder of the essence. He remarked that this property of absorbing oxygen gradually increases, until a maximum is attained, and again diminishes after a certain lapse of time. In the oil of lavender this maximum remained only seven days, during each of which it absorbed seven times its volume of oxygen. In the oil of lemons the maximum was not attained until at the end of a month; it then lasted twenty-six days; during each of which it absorbed twice its volume of oxygen. The oil of turpentine did not attain the maximum for five months, it then remained for one month, during which time it absorbed daily its own volume of oxygen.