Progress of Foreig?! Science. 331 



o'clock P.M., while the sky was serene, a very considerable 

 globe of fire was seen in the air, which seemed to descend 

 rapidly in a straight line. Immediately thereafter a loud rattling 

 noise and a detonation were heard, and a stone weighing 92 

 kilogrammes (203 libs, avoird.) fell in the Commune of Juvenas, 

 department of Ard^che. According to the report of a villager 

 its appearance was announced by two strong explosions, like two 

 discharges of a cannon, and followed by a rumbhng noise, which 

 spread consternation among the inhabitants. The stone had 

 sunk 18 decimetres into the ground, that is, nearly 6 feet. It 

 is also said, that some smaller stones fell on the occasion. The 

 fragment of the great one, which was sent to the Academy of 

 Sciences, has the usual external characters of meteorolites. 



II. Applications of Chemistry. — Under quinina we have 

 already pointed out the medical applications of this substance. 

 M. Sexullas in a memoir, of which there is a copious abstract in 

 the Journal de Pharinacic for September, shews, that all the 

 antimonial preparations used in medicine, except carefully crys- 

 tallized tartar emetic, contain more or less arsenic, which origi- 

 nally combined with the antimony in the ore, continues perti- 

 naciously associated with it through all its modifications. He 

 also proves in the same paper, that a very powerful pyrophorus 

 is obtained, by treating tartar emetic in the same way as the 

 mixture of alum and flour is treated for making the pyrophorus 

 of Homberg. The curious details on this subject are reserved 

 for our next Journal. 



Of the severity of the French 1)01100 Pharmaco-lecjale, we 

 may judge, when M. L — , a respectable apothecary of Verdun 

 has been recently fined .3,000 francs, for selling sulphuric acid 

 to a woman, who poisoned herself with it. 



The experiments of M. Magendie having shewn that the salt, 

 extracted long ago from opium by Derosnes, and which is im- 

 properly called narcotine, produces a stupor differing from real 

 sleep, and acts on dogs as a poison in small doses, M. Ilobi- 

 quet conceived that he might render opium a more soothing 

 medicine by depriving it of this irritating and pernicious prin- 

 ciple. Accordingly .M. Robiquet has prepared an extract of 

 opium on good chemical principles, which has produced happy 

 effects. He macerates the opium, cut into small pieces, in water, 

 as if to obtain the acjueous extract; he filters and evaporates to 

 the consistence of u thick syrup, and treats this extract with ether, 

 agitating very frequently in a convenient vessel. He decants 

 the ethcreous tincture. This, when once separated, is stihinittod 

 to distillation to recover the ether. He repeats the operation as 

 long as he obtains crystals of narcotine. When the ether has no 

 longer any action on the extract, lu'cvapoiates the solution, and 

 the opium i:« prepared. As tl>c same rlhcr may be employed lo 

 Z 2 



