37 



TENTH MEETING. 



ROYAL INSTITUTION, <Jth March, 1846. 



The PRESIDENT in the Chair. 



The President read the report of the Committee of 

 the Academie des Sciences of Paris, to investigate the 

 electrical phenomena alleged to he exhibited by a young 

 girl there. 



The President read a letter from the Eev. C. Galloway, 

 of New Brunswick, written in November last, giving infor- 

 mation useful to persons wishing to emigrate to that 

 colony. The writer strongly recommended the climate, 

 soil, &c, and stated that 6123 emigrants, chiefly Irish and 

 Scotch, had arrived in the course of the year. 



poison used in confectionary. 



Dr. Brett stated that his attention had been drawn to 

 the poisonous nature of the colouring matter used in con- 

 fectionary, by seeing in the newspapers that two children 

 had suffered from eating some ornament on a cake. He 

 added, that a committee had been formed in Paris to inves- 

 tigate the general subject, and that they had discovered 

 violent poisons in current use. About the same time, Dr. 

 O'Shaughnessy, of London, published a pamphlet on the 

 subject. 



The following were the results which Dr. Brett had 

 obtained, in common caraway comfits of various colours : — 

 The yellow were coloured with gamboge ; the pink, with 

 cochineal or madder ; the red, with sulphuret of mercury ; 

 the blue, with Prussian blue (cyanaret of iron) ; the green, 

 with arsenite of copper, or the green hydrated oxide of 

 copper. 



Of the kind called cinnamon comfits, Dr. Brett gave 

 the following account : — The material was a mixture of 

 plaster of Paris, starch, and sugar; and the coating was 

 chromate of lead, as sIioavu by the action of sulphuretted 

 hydrogen The pink colour was produced by madder. Low- 

 priced sweetmeats — viz., those at l£d. per ounce — were 



