460 Chronicles of Science. | July, 
French chemists are still busily occupied with the phenomena of 
fermentation. The last experimenter who has taken up the subject is 
M. Béchamp, who attempts to show* that alcohol is a waste product of 
the yeast plant. His idea is that the plant first of all transforms sugar 
into glucose by means of peculiar ferment, which he calls zymase ; it 
then assimilates the glucose and grows; finally, it throws out the 
alcohol and other compounds usually called products of fermentation, 
just as animals throw out waste products such as urea, &c. As a con- 
firmation of this idea, the author asserts that the yeast plant throws 
out alcohol when not in contact with sugar or any fermentable 
material. 
At the commencement of the present year, Mr. Smith, of Edin- 
burgh, announced the discovery of a new alkaloid, in the juice of 
fresh aconite root. He named it aconella, and stated that in compo- 
sition and all its chemical properties it was identical with narcotine, 
one of the opium alkaloids. Recently, Professor Jellett, of the Dublin 
University,t has investigated the optical properties of aconella and 
narcotine, and found that in those the two alkaloids (or one) are iden- 
tical. The extraction of one and the same alkaloid from two such 
dissimilar sources, is, to say the least, extremely curious. 
Everything that relates to the Cinchona plant, and the valuable 
alkaloids derived from it, is of so much importance to us, that we 
cannot pass over the communication of Dr. De Vry, recently made to a 
meeting of the Pharmaceutical Society.{ The author, who is the 
able superintendent of the Dutch Cinchona plantations in Java, has 
recently paid a visit to the British plantations in Ceylon, and on the 
Neilgherry Hills. He confirms the report that these are in a most 
flourishing condition, and he obtained at them numerous specimens 
of stem and root barks which he has submitted to analysis. The 
most curious result of these analyses is, that quinine is found in the 
largest quantities in the bark of the root, a statement quite in contra- 
diction to that of our English authority, Mr. Howard. But so certain 
is Dr. De Vry of his accuracy, that he goes so far as to suggest the 
cultivation of the plant for the root alone. 
In analytical chemistry some useful information has been furnished 
by recent writers. When sulphuric acid in combination with the 
alkalies is estimated in the form of sulphate of baryta, some alkali is 
always carried down, which it is impossible to wash out, and which 
exaggerates the amount of sulphuric acid. A writer in ‘Silliman’s 
Journal,’ makes known the fact that the alkali may be got rid of by 
digesting the precipitate in a solution of acetate of copper strongly 
acidulated with acetic acid. The mixture should be kept near a 
boiling temperature for ten or fifteen minutes, then, after well washing, 
pure sulphate of baryta will be left behind. 
Winckler has recently published a method by which in assaying 
tin ores, the metal can be easily obtained in a single button. After 
having separated other metals in the usual way, he mixes the binoxide 
* «Comptes Rendus,’ April 4. 
+ ‘Chemical News,’ vol. ix. p. 216. 
t ‘Chemical News,’ vol. ix. p. 237. 
