Coal.— Honey.—Cure for Croup. 313 
. His Majesty’s ships Spitfire and Bonne Citoyenne, on a 
recent cruize off the coast of Greenland, discovered two 
distinct strata of coal in the cliff on the north-east end of 
Bear Island. ‘The upper layer is of superior quality: the 
under one was ponderous and full of sulphur, but burned 
well. Some metallic ore, supposed to be tin, was mixed 
with the latter. Bear Island is in lat. 74.28. long. 18. 20.E, 
good anchorage all around, and easy of access, except to 
the south-east, where the coast is high and rocky. The 
island is about twelve miles in diameter, barren, having on 
it a few bears and foxes, and a quantity of aquatic fowl. 
From some experiments recently made at Paris upon 
honey, it appears that this substance is composed of 44 of 
syrup, and ;4. of a solid white farinaceous and almost in- 
sipid substance. When adulterated with flour or starch, which 
is too often the case, the fraud may be detected by heat- 
ing it:—if it is pure, the whole mass will be melted into a 
fine transparent syrup; whereas, if it is adulterated, the ex- 
traneous body will give it a muddy appearance. The white 
substance above alluded to may be separated from the 
syrup by evaporation with alcohol. The syrup, when 
taken internally, in the dose of about three ounces and a 
half in teaevery morning, does not affect the stomach; but 
the powder or concrete part, if taken in the dose of about 
two drachms, occasions colic followed by looseness. It 
would appear, therefore, that the laxative properties as- 
cribed to hdéney are owing to the aboye substance: and 
the following recipe is given for obtaining a syrup of honey 
without this sometimes disagreeable concomitant :—Dilute 
eight ounces of honey with two of cold water, adding one 
ounce of charcoal from bones: shake the mixture, let it 
stand an hour and a half, and then filter. The syrup at 
first passes over quite turbid, bat it soon becomes clear. 
Tt acquires from the charcoal a peculiar smell, but which 
may be entirely removed from it by exposing it to a gentle 
heat for about a quarter of an hour. 
A prize of 12,000 francs was offered in 1807 by the 
French Government to the physician who should produce 
the best memoir on the disease calied the Croup: two have 
shared the prize, being of equal merit; three are distin- 
guished as extremely Foseunable to their authors; anda 
sixth memoir is marked by the proposal of a remedy that is 
said by the writer to be a specific in this malady and in 
the hooping-cough. It is liver of sulphur alkalized, a sul- 
pha 
