THE ALUMNI JOURNAL. 



191 



by that of the bulldog in the entire 

 animal kingdom, swarms in most of the 

 pools and renders death practically cer- 

 tain to any one obliged to make his way 

 by swimming for any considerable dis- 

 tance in a pool where they abound. 



Concerning the botanical work per- 

 formed, little can be stated in detail un- 

 til time has permitted of the careful 

 examination of the specimens brought 

 home. About five hundred species were 

 collected, the object being to obtain 

 thirty-two specimens of each in order to 

 supply correspondents, including most 

 of the leading universities abroad as well 

 as in the United States. When it is 

 considered that there were' but fifty-one 

 days between the dates of arrival and 

 departure, and that more than a week of 

 this time was rendered unavailable owing 

 to an accident, it will be seen that the 

 collection of so large a number of speci- 

 mens rendered the position of Mr. Squires 

 and myself anything but one of leisure. 

 Six hundred pounds of dryers were kept 

 constantly employed, and this had to be 

 handled at least twice, and when showers 

 were frequent often many times daily, 

 the sheets being taken from the drying 

 plants, replaced by others and placed 

 separately upon frames in the sun to 

 dry. "We were almost always at work 

 with the earliest dawn and did not stop 

 usually until a late hour in the evening. 

 Our collection, however, is rich enough 

 to make us well satisfied, even 

 though it had cost 'us far more labor. 

 Besides the herbarium specimens, thirty 

 sections of tree trunks, some of them 

 very large, representing nearly all the 

 valuable timbers of the region, were ob- 

 tained and are now being prepared for 

 exhibition purposes. A Laurinaceous 

 tree was encountered whose wood is very 

 rich in an apparently valuable essential 

 oil unknown to us. Several hundred 



pounds of this wood were brought home 

 for examination andjdistillation. Speci- 

 mens of Balata gum, obtained separately 

 from the different species, are included 

 in the collection. Several species and 

 forms of Cephaelis and Smilax were col- 

 lected in abundance and in different 

 stages of development. A number of 

 plants yielding native remedies were ob- 

 tained, although information of this 

 kind was unusually scanty and difficult 

 to obtain. A large collection of milky 

 juiced plants was obtained. Last and 

 not least among the objects of economic 

 interest, is a form of Erythroxylon, al- 

 most, if not exactly identical with one 

 which I previously collected at the junc- 

 tion of the rivers Beni and Madre de 

 Dios, thousands of miles southwestward, 

 and which I have always taken to be a 

 forest form of the Coca-plant, escaped 

 for many generations from cultivation. 

 If so, the present collection must repre- 

 sent a very ancient cultivation of this 

 plant at the mouth of the Orinoco, as it 

 occurred quite wild in the forest and 

 could by no possibility have made its 

 way from the distant Andes by the 

 transportation of seeds upon the river 

 current. 



A Reagent for Alcohol. 

 E. Merck in Chentiker Zeitnng finds that 

 even minimum traces of alcohol in aqueous 

 solutions may be detected by molybdic acid. 

 The sensitiveness of this test extends for ethyl 

 alcohol to o 02 per cent., and for methyl alco- 

 hol to 0.2 per cent. Molybdic acid is dissolv- 

 ed in concentrated sulphuric acid, and the so- 

 lution thus obtained is stratified in a test glass 

 at about 60° below the liquid under examina- 

 tion. At the surface of contact of the two 

 liquids there appears a distinct blue ring, the 

 intensity of the color varying with the amount 

 of alcohol present. On shaking, the blue zone 

 disappears, but reappears on the addition of 

 more molybdic acid. The reaction is not spe- 

 cific for a\co\io\.—Chem. News. 



