  Lyman series absorption features and corresponding metal lines in three
high-resolution quasar spectra are fitted in the standard way with thermally
broadened discrete redshift components. A candidate sample is assembled, of 10
velocity components in 7 separate complexes, which display features
attributable to deuterium. Three of these components in 2 complexes were
previously published; the fits to the seven others are described here in
detail. To estimate the contamination of this sample by hydrogen
``interlopers'', a control sample of ``pretendium'' candidates is assembled
from the same data, and in the same way in all respects but one: the control
sample candidates are drawn from the red side of hydrogen absorbers, rather
than the blue side where the deuterium feature appears. The control sample is
therefore drawn from a population with the same statistical properties as the
plausible interlopers, including their joint correlationsin velocity, column
density and width. The properties of the two samples are compared
statistically, using the Doppler parameters and column densities from the line
fits, and are found to be significantly different. The D candidates have
narrower Doppler parameters, consistent with the deuterium identification. The
column densities of the D sample (but not the P sample) are consistent with a
universal cosmic abundance; the weighted mean abundance for the new candidates
presented here is $ < log (D/H) > = -3.75 \pm 0.51 $.
