CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 255 



and that is on Allsop's bitter ale. The assertion of a French chemist that 

 the strychnia, manufactured so largely in France, was used in England for 

 adulterating bitter beer, put our brewers upon their mettle ; and Mr. All- 

 sop was the earliest to place specimens at the disposal of the chemist for 

 analysis. As was to be expected, no strychnia was found in these ales, nor 

 other kind of adulteration. The adulterations most frequently detected in Lon- 

 don porter are salt and treacle. 



From beer we turn to milk and here nothing more deleterious than water 

 could be discovered to have been added, and this only hi eleven cases out of 

 twenty-six. 



Snuff in some instances was found to contain lead, and cases are cited where 

 lead-colic and painter's palsy have been Induced by the use of snuff. Pickles 

 anchovies, spices, and preserves, were frequently found to contain injurious 

 materials. On the whole, says the Athenceum, as the result of this inquiry, 

 we have a higher notion of the morality of the trade than we had before. 

 In by far the larger number of articles examined there was no adulteration. 

 In another set of cases, the alleged adulteration, as in the case of chicory 

 with coffee, is a matter of taste, and not of fraud. In another class of cases, 

 and these a very large majority of the adulterations, the substances, though 

 fraudulently added, were not injurious as in the case of water with milk. 







ON THE USE OF SAUYA. 



The action of the saliva upon the starch we take as food, is similar to that 

 of a ferment, and causes it to undergo a change into sugar. If you take a por- 

 tion of pure starch and hold it in the mouth for only two minutes, you can 

 obtain distinct and decided traces of sugar. We have here a solution of starch 

 not treated with saliva, and if we employ our test for sugar, which you well 

 know (sulphate of copper and liquor potassas), we have no reduction of the 

 oxyd of copper ; but in this other mixture of starch and water, which has 

 been held in the mouth for two minutes only, you may see distinctly a beauti- 

 ful red line of reduced copper, the evidence of the presence of sugar. If the 

 starch is left in the mouth for three minutes, a still more manifest action is ap- 

 parent ; and if it remains there five minutes, there is a distinct mass of reduced 

 copper, which is proportioned to the quantity of sugar formed out of the starch. 

 Bence Jones's Lecture. 



PREPARATION AXD USE OF COFFEE. 



From a report in the Jour. Franklin Institute, of a series of experiments 

 instituted by Messrs. Dalson and "Wetherill, of Philadelphia, we make the 

 folio whig extracts : 



In addition to the tannin contained in coffee, and which is somewhat altered 

 during the process of roasting, the berry is characterized by two other sub- 

 stances ; one caffein, a product containing nitrogen, which exists in the pro- 

 portion of about one per cent, (the same exists in nearly a double proportion 

 hi tea), and is not altered in the roasting process ; and the other a peculiar 



