208 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



ing, it is to be hoped that the attention of chemists will be drawn 

 to the pectic fermentation, well knoAvn doubtless as a scientific fact, 

 but of which no one suspected an industrial application of so 

 high importance. — Scientific American. 



SUBSTITUTE FOR ANIMAL CHARCOAL. 



Mr. Stanford has recently exhibited to the British Pharma- 

 ceutical Conference a new kind of charcoal, which appears to 

 possess many valuable properties. This substance consists of the 

 coal produced from the long stems of a species of sea-weed — 

 Laminaria digitata — which is thrown up in great abundance in 

 certain localities, especially upon the western shore of the Hebrides. 

 This sea-weed is collected and dried in the air. When first thrown 

 up, it is in the form of long fleshy stems, 7 to 8 feet in length, and 

 about the thickness of the wrist, but when dried, presents hard, 

 horny, flexible rods, about the size of the finger. When carbon- 

 ized, these stems swell out into a highly porous charcoal, about 3 

 times their original volume. This charcoal contains about 40 per 

 cent, of salts, free from sulphides, and is very rich in iodine. 



After lixiviation, the residual mass has the following composi- 

 tion, with slight variations : — 



Carbon 50 



Phosphate of lime. . . • 4 



Carbonate of lime 26 



Carbonate of magnesia 6 



Silicic acid 5 



Alumina ...2 



Sulphate of potash 6 



Chlor. iodine ....5 



— and about 1.25 per cent, ammonia. 



It generally contains, in addition, about 15 per cent, of water, 

 which it is very difficult to separate, the charcoal having a most 

 powerful affinity for moisture. 



Attention was called to the remarkable analogy between the 

 chemical composition of this and of animal charcoal, which ap- 

 peared to class it with that substance, and render it unlike any 

 other charcoal of a vegetable origin. It cannot be used for sugar 

 refining, on account of the large jjercentage of carbonate of lime ; 

 but it possesses decolorizing and deodorizing properties, superior, 

 weight for weisfbt, to the best animal charcoal ; tested with solu- 

 tion of caramel it decolorizes 25 per cent, more than animal char- 

 coal under the same conditions. 



It has been subjected to continued filtration of the thickest town 

 sewage, for several months, without the least clogging, and its 

 efficacy after this treatment remained unimpaired. — Druggists' 

 Circular. 



t 





