No. 85. 1 343 



CHEMICAL EXAMINATION OF THE RICE PLANT AND 

 RICE SOIL OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 



BY CHARLES UPHAM SHEPARD, M. D., 

 Professor of Chemistry in the Medical College of South Carolina. 



1. — Of clean Commercial Rice. 



Burned in a porcelain capsule under the muffle, until all the com- 

 bustible matter had disappeared, a blebby glass-like ash remained, 

 weighing 0.404 per cent, or less than half a part in one hundred of 

 the rice consumed.* Corrected statement of mineral constituents of 

 clean rice=0.487 per cent. 



Composition of 100 parts of this residuum. 



Phosphate of lime (bone-earth) with decided ) „r. on 



traces of intermixed phosphate of magnesia, ) 

 Phosphate of potassa, nearly 5 per cent, .... \ 

 Silica, sometimes as high as 20 per cent, .... J 



They/ 



And the following salts in traces only. They, 

 are enumerated in the supposed order of their! 

 abundance, viz : V 24.8 



Sulphate of potassa, 



Chloride of potassium, 



Carbonate of lime, , 



Carbonate of magnesia, , 



) 



2. — Of the Cotyledon. 



Commonly called the eye or chit of the grain. 



Ignited under a muffle on a porcelain plate, it burns with a bright 

 light, and the ash flows into a glass. From the intimate way in which 

 it adhered to the plate, it was impossible to determine its weight or 

 even its composition in a satisfactory manner. The expression 

 6.824 per cent., however, may ht taken as an approximation to the 

 weight of the residuum. In composition, it appears scarcely to differ 

 from the ash of clean rice, except in being somewhat richer in lime, 

 and in the phosphoric and sulphuric acids. 



^ 3. — Of thefine Rice Flour. 



As it comes down on the hulk. 



It gives on burning, a bulky, porous ash, weighing 10.746 per 

 cent,, of the flour consumed. Corrected as above=12.30 per cent. 



•It being requisite to determine the inorganic ingredients of rice, and of the various 

 parts of the entire plant, as it may reasonably be supposed, they are returned to the soil 

 again on the decomposition of the plant and its parts, (whether taking place spontaneous- 

 ly or otherwise,) and not to give those ingredients in all cases as they are actually yield- 

 ed to us in the process of destructive analysis, I shall subjoin many of the constituents of 

 the ashy residua not as found, but rather as the principles of chemistry authorize us to 

 deduce them, in accordance with the above requisition. 



