paper (papier velouté), ammoniacal products, &c.; very large quantities are used for manuring vines and olive trees; its very slow decomposition causes it to act for six or eight years; according to our analysis, it ranks among the richest manures.* incineration. The analysis of this substance shows that it is a rich manure. It is employed in quantities proportionate to its equivalent, and previously divided with a hatchet and a hammer; sometimes it is steeped, when divided, in hot water before being spread on the land; its action lasts for three or four years. The application of woollen rags has been for a long time practised in southern countries, in the culture of olive and mulberry Dregs of Glue.-The manufacturers, after trees, the vine, &c. We will here give an having treated the pieces of skins and the example of the utility of this rich manure in tendons with hydrate of lime, and after our departments of the centre. M. Delon- having washed them and submitted them to champs, proprietor of a farm of 185 hectares long boiling, obtain as a product gelatine or at the Château de Fontenelle (Seine-et- glue, and as residue-which they wash and Marne), has effected considerable saving press with the aid of heat-all the parts, by the employment of this manure. He unattacked by the boiling water, of the tenprocures the rags from Paris. A single dinous and cutaneous substances, hair, some vehicle with three horses brings 3,000 kilo- remains of horn, bone, and muscle, besides grammes, which cost 180 francs, sufficient a calcareous soap and earthy matters. for manuring 1 hectare, and whose good effect is perceived from the third year. This quantity is substituted for 45,000 kilogrammes of dung, which, at 70 cents, would cost 315 frs. M. Delonchamps, after having manured a portion of his land with woollen rags for three years, spreads dung on it for three other years, in order to keep the soil sufficiently light; then he returns to the rags. Besides the direct economy thus obtained, transmission is facilitated, which is sometimes so expensive on heavy lands after rain. It is convenient to divide the rags as much as possible before spreading them: this is done by means of scythe blades planted at 45° on a block. This economical manual operation leaves the rags cut in rather too large pieces; thus numerous higher tufts are seen in manured lands, which correspond to rags placed at more or less regular distances. Greaves. This residue, chiefly composed of the membranes of the adipose tissue, and of the fat with which they remain impregnated, likewise contains small quantities of blood, muscle, and bone. Greaves are chiefly employed for feeding dogs; agriculturists are beginning to make an advantageous use of them as manure. In order to determine their composition, a common sample was first prepared by filing different portions of a cake of greaves, uniting and mixing these powders, then taking a sufficient quantity for desiccation, analysis, and We have operated on woollen cloth of the first quality, entirely formed of pure wool; the inferior qualities containing threads of hemp, flax, and cotton, earthy substances, &c., from to, their richness must be diminished in that proportion. This mixture, very moist and warm on leaving the presses, putrefies with great rapidity, if it be not speedily dried; in the dry state it may be preserved for a long time free from putrefaction. It was after an immediate desiccation that the common sample submitted to analysis, the strength of which is indicated in the tables, was prepared. The processes of disinfection, of which we shall speak in conclusion, are applied with success to this residue, and increase its realisable effect, and obviate the inconveniences of the decomposition by rendering it much slower. Powdered Human Dung (poudrette).— Poudrette is the name given to the residues, slowly dried in the air, of the deposits formed at the bottom of the receptacles into which privies are emptied. Although putrefaction, during several years, greatly reduces the organic matter by removing in the form of vapor its most putrescible portions, the pulverulent residue obtained still gives out putrid gases, a portion of which may be absorbed without complete decomposition into the organs of plants, communicating to them a disagreeable odor, especially to their leaves. This may explain the abandonment of poudrette in certain localities; in Lombardy for example, where it is desired to preserve the excellent quality of the pastures, and to avoid introducing into them an odor which would injure the taste of milk. In many other cultures, poudrette acts efficaciously on account of the proportion of combined nitrogen which it contains, with the exception of the cause of decay abovementioned; it results from this, that it will always be necessary to compare with one another the various commercial poudrettes, and this has become particularly useful, since pulverulent organic remains, containing very little nitrogen, are mixed with the former matter, before it is completely dried. We have given the analysis of samples of poudrette of two qualities. (To be continued.) PREPARATION OF BLACK OXIDE To the Editors of The Chemist. If you think the following preparation of black oxide of mercury worth inserting in ON THE ANALYSIS OF SOILS AND THE CHEMIST, it is at your service. MANURES. To the Editors of The Chemist. Feb. 21, 1843. GENTLEMEN,It is with the greatest satisfaction that I find you are about to do agriculture an important service, by appropriating a portion of your valuable columns to AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY. The table you published, as taken from Noad's Lectures, is of service to the farmer, since it draws his attention to the inorganic constituents of plants,-a subject hitherto, I may say, totally neglected by agriculturists. Tables of this sort would be of infinite service, embracing all the usual products of a farm; and as the German and French chemists have labored especially in this field, they are good sources to draw from. Such authorities as Sprengel, Meyer, Dumas, Schübler, Boussingault, De Saussure and De Candolle, are indisputably good, and cannot fail to instruct us. Again, it would be of great advantage to the farmer, if he knew how to analyse his soils; and I do not know of any work where he may learn the best means of doing So. The process recommended by Sir H. Davy is faulty; and that suggested by the Rev. Mr. Rham, in the Journal of the Royal Society, if any thing, worse, because more complex. In deviating from the usual modes of analysis, with the endeavor to render things simple, I am inclined to believe analysis has been rendered infinitely more difficult. In addition to the analysis of soils, the farmer might be instructed in that of manures, such as are now much in vogue, and procurable only at a heavy outlay. Such, for instance, as bone dust, guano, nitrate of potassa, nitrate of soda, soot, &c. &c. These manures are often adulterated, and at the present moment the farmer is open to every fraud of the seller, from his thorough ignorance. Trusting, Gentlemen, that you will excuse the above hints and come to our aid, I am, Your obedient Servant, COLUMELLA. It is original with me, so far as I know, and although somewhat operose and roundabout in its details, it furnishes a medicine of more activity than the London blue mass, and is more permanent than any other preparation of protoxide of mercury that I have seen. Boil calomel in pure water, with a considerable excess of bicarbonate of potassa, (sold largely in this country under the name of sol seratis) with constant stirring, until it becomes of a dirty or dull greyish white; decant the solution, and remove all traces of potassa, by repeated affusions of boiling water. Triturate it two or three times with ammoniated alcohol (of the shops), in quan tities sufficient to cover the mass to some little depth, when at rest; afterwards wash the powder, which has now become of a very dark slate color, in several parcels of the strongest commercial alcohol (free from alkali), drain on a filter, and spread to dry in a dark place, that the ammoniacal odor, if any, may exhale, and preserve in a close bottle secluded from light. This powder after being kept some time, becomes of a light slate or grey color, probably from loss of water. A sample of this preparation, which I have had by me for ten years, shows under a strong magnifier no yellow deutoxide it, and form your own judgment. or globules of metallic mercury. Please try Can you not, gentlemen, publish in your valuable Journal, some bona fide processes for the preparation of colors or pigments? Scarcely one published recipe in a hundred will produce a marketable article. Wit ness, for instance, the directions in Ure's Dictionary for the preparation of Schweinfurth or emerald green; nothing is there said about adding vinegar to the mixture of verdigris and arsenic, and yet I find it necessary, in order to develope the fine green tint. By this management, an amorphous powder of tolerably good color is formed, but I have entirely failed in producing the fine scaly or crystalline appearance, which is essential to bring out the color in its full brilliancy. If compatible with the design and interests of THE CHEMIST, I should be gratified that you would take up this subject, and show how the best quality of this pigment may be manufactured, and whether the oxide of copper precipitated from the sulphate by alkalis, cannot be substituted for and made ADDRESS TO THE PHARMACEUTI- | prior to the commencement of this Jour- WE have long had it in contemplation to lay before our readers a retrospect or review of the PHARMACEUTICAL SOCIETY, including the ostensible objects of its establishment, and which ought to have been accomplished, but which have given way to individual advancement-what it has done -what it has not done-and what it ought to have done; showing, at the same time, the course pursued by THE CHEMIST-the first and only real guardian of the interests of the chemists of this great country. We are the more forcibly impelled to this by the circumstance that a CHARTER (recognising its existence!!!) has been granted by HER MAJESTY to this self-constituted and ill-managed body, which consists of only about one eighth of the trade, and by the appearance of a pamphlet by Mr. Jacob Bell entitled: "A Concise Historical Sketch of the Progress of Pharmacy in Great Britain, from the Time of its Partial Separation from the Practice of Medicine until the Establishment of the Pharmaceutical Society." We should have given this retrospect earlier, but that we were determined to give them full scope, and to wait until they had shown themselves in their true colors. That time has now arrived. Before entering upon the subject of the PHARMACEUTICAL SOCIETY, it is necessary to enter into a recapitulation of the state in which we found matters in the year 1839, At that period, there was a violent warfare carried on between the apothecaries and chemists. Each of these was jealous of the encroachments of the other; but the former had the advantage of being upheld by all the medical periodicals of the day, while the latter had no means of giving vent to their long smothered grievances. The apothecaries, through their principal speaking-trumpet, THE LANCET, lavished on the chemists the unmerited epithets of― 66 quacks, impostors, mountebanks, jugglers, marauders, poisoners, ignorant druggists, murderers," &c. &c. &c. By means of the Medical Press, these opinions relative to the chemists of this country made their way, uncontradicted, unrestrained, and unopposed, all over the world; and, in consequence, we find the enlightened Pharmaciens of France and Germany regarding them as the most ignorant wretches on the face of the earth; as men of whom the Apothecary in "Romeo and Juliet" was but an average example; as degraded, mean, pitiful creatures, who, without knowledge, would undertake to treat any and every disease in order to grasp a few paltry pence for medicine from their unhappy victims. Having decided on commencing a periodical embracing Chemistry and its Applications to the Arts, Pharmacy, &c., we determined to devote a portion of our space to protecting the interests of this numerous and intelligent body,-hitherto unrepre sented, and to rescuing them from the obloquy cast upon them by their enemies, the apothecaries. The result of this determination was the appearance of THE CHEMIST, on the 1st of January, 1840-an event hailed with delight by the trade throughout the kingdom. In publishing THE CHEMIST, the following were the principal objects we had in view-To advance chemists in knowledge by bringing within their reach the discoveries and improvements in chemistry and Pharmacy made within the period of publication: to prove to the world that chemists were not so sunk in ignorance as was imagined to repel the attacks made by the apothecaries to contend for their privileges in a word, to raise them to the level of their Continental brethren, and to demand for them proper political rights. When we joined in the strife, it was not to prop up the tottering interests of a retail shop; not to benefit ourselves in any way by taking up the cause of a class of which we were not members; we did not work upon the fears of the trade in order that we might profit by protecting them; and, when every chance of obtaining more money had failed, to betray the victims into the snare set for them by their enemies. No: we had no selfish interest to serve in befriending the then helpless chemists: we hoped for no reward beyond that inward and delightful feeling-a consciousness that we have been greatly instrumental in raising the position of those whose cause we espoused. We have our reward. But to proceed.-Towards the end of 1840, we found chemists in some measure awakened from their apathy to a sense of their wrongs, and more willing to adopt measures for their own safety, and for the amelioration of their political and scientific condition. Thus we had already effected some good. The glorious work was begun. In our October No. (1840), page 281, we published an article entitled: "Medical Reform.-Proposal to form a Druggists' Association similar to the British Medical Association:" in this article the following passages occur: "We trust that the druggists will lend us their assistance in obtaining redress of their grievances. They should call MEETINGS in London and OTHER LARGE TOWNS, and ORGANISE their PLANS: they might even form an association, similar to the British Medical Association, to carry out their views. Such an Association would, we feel convinced, immediately be thronged with members, and would be too powerful to be successfully resisted. To it we would cheerfully lend very efficient assistance : our pen should always be in readiness to aid it in its endeavors to obtain that which is due, both to the druggists and to the public. Our "We beseech chemists and druggists to act on the above suggestion, and we think there is no reason to doubt success. great object is to obtain a division of the branches of the medical profession, in which chemists and druggists will take up their proper position,-an object which will be obtained if the measures we propose be adopted-certainly not without. "There is no time be lost: the meetings, if called, must be called AT ONCE:-we are sure they would be very numerously and respectably attended." In the commencement of November, or it may have been at the end of October, 1840 (and not, as Mr. Bell erroneously states, in the pamphlet already alluded to, in February, 1841), Mr. Hawes' Bill was printed by order of the House of Commons, and an analysis of it was published in THE CHEMIST for December. Well, from the period of the publication of this Bill, in October or November, 1840, to February, 1841, no steps were openly taken to prevent it from passing into a law. However, it was read a first time (if our memory do not deceive us, in the beginning of February), and was appointed for second reading on the 19th. With the provisions of * Thus, it is clear, that we first suggested the formation of a Society, and that we saw the necessity for doing so long before our Little did we suggestions were acted on. think that we were devising a plan for the advancement of one or two designing men! this Bill, all of our readers are well acquainted; we need not, therefore, enter into ⚫ them. Matters were now becoming serious: not a moment was to be lost. Mr. Farmar, to whose laudable energy and zeal the Pharmaceutical Society owes its existence, and chemists and druggists the maintenance of the right of prescribing, according to their ancient practice,-in conjunction with some others of the trade, perceiving that the effect of Mr. Hawes' Bill would be the destruction of their vocation, called on many of the most influential wholesale and retail druggists, and persuaded them to sign à requisition convening a public meeting of the trade, to take place on the 15th of February. Every one knows what followed. The trade met; resolutions condemning the stringent clauses of the Bill were passed; a Committee was appointed to give effect to those resolutions; a deputation of the Committee waited on Mr. Hawes, and the result was, that the clauses were struck out of the Bill. But the chemists, very properly, did not rest here. Present danger having been avoided, future danger was to be prevented. A Society-the PHARMACEUTICAL SoCIETY-was formed. From this Society much good was expected. We thought well of it, and used our influence, which by that time had become exceedingly powerful, in its behalf. We called on the Trade to join it; to support it with money and interest. THE CHEMIST was the only literary friend of the Society. (See Nos. XV. XVI. XVII. XVIII. XIX. and XX.) Thanks were voted to us by most of the Country Meetings, for the powerful aid which we had so disinterestedly afforded to the Society. In London alone, no thanks were awarded to us; this would not have answered the purpose of the designing parties already alluded to (for to them chiefly do we attribute this intentional piece of disrespect and ingratitude), as they intended to commence a Journal in opposition to the one which had so mainly assisted in the formation of that Society, which they were about to pervert to the advancement of their own interest.* Towards the conclusion of 1841, a strong feeling began to prevail among the chemists residing at a distance from the metropolis, that they could never derive any advantage from the Society, and they poured forth their complaints in THE CHEMIST. But of this subject we shall speak further on. It soon, however, became evident, that an under-handed game was being carried on; that a Society intended for the general good of the Trade was being perverted, so as to serve the interests of several designing individuals. These persons endeavored to get all into their own hands, and they have succeeded so far. But we will drag their designs to light; we will brand them with having betrayed those whom they have deluded into paying their money for protection. As soon as the PHARMACEUTICAL SoCIETY was actually formed, it became evident that the "pickings" would be considerable. So, we hear of pharmaceutical tea parties in Oxford Street, entertainments at which, we suspect, beverages more potent than tea regaled the guests. Now, we know that these tea-parties were not without their object,-people in such a situation don't give tea-parties for nothing of course they were then securing the support of those around them; it is impossible to refuse support to a man when you are drinking his tea and eating his toast! Mr. Bell soon after conceived a project, mighty in its conception, but puerile, nay, infantile, in the manner in which it has been carried into execution. Seeing, with envious eyes and inward groanings, the deservedly high popularity of THE CHEMIST, he determined on trying his hand at editing a Journal. Accordingly, he commenced a periodical, and (over a cup of tea, we suppose) obtained the sanction of the Com *We need not say how fruitless that opposition has been, of course the production of such a person as Mr. BELL, and under such circumstances, could not affect our greatly increasing circulation. |