-I 



QUERCITRON'. 



QUINA. 



ftfc! 



lUlline 



qtmrcUrin crystallise* out. It L an in<l<>n>iiK, hitter, 

 :. >l:i;liily soluble ill Killing water, absolute alcnho 

 n*dil\ ! i" hot acetic acid, ami very soluble 

 ammonia. 



Quercitiiu it a glncoside; that in, by tin . into .n id., it 



break* up into grape sugar (glucose), and a new body to which tl. 

 )rm/>N ha* been given. 



QuercKin (I'-.HjO,,,) i n dtroct-jallov granular powder, inodorous 

 and tactelem. It u insoluble in cold wat< r, only slightly *olubl( in 

 hut wat<-r. but very soluble in alcohol or in alkaline solutions. Like 

 qucrvitrin it is coloured green by i*Tchloridc "f iron, llla.-iwet/ htm 

 recently found tliat qiieixctin itself .. atains tin- elements of . 

 d. iiUc.d \\itli phluroglucin, acnciated with a crystalline acid to which 

 he gives the name own > .71lm. 



I'.IU'ITRUX. Tho barks of QMTMM ftMfario, tiM quercitron or 

 black oak, and of the Q.alba, or white oak, of North America, are 

 officinal in the I'nited States, and that of the Q. linrlnrnt in the German 

 pharmacopoeia, but not the British. In tho former tiny arc cm- 

 ployed ir.'in convenience, as being indigenous, though confessedly 

 inferior in tannin and astringency to the Q. Kubv.r (pedunrulata) of 

 F.nr..|f. The German pharmacopoeias give quercitron a place IK cause 

 it furnishes a useful reagent for the salts of iron ; iw infusion yields 

 no precipitate with gelatine. But its employment in dyeing, and also in 

 dressing leather, is the chief cause of it ..rted into Kurope. 



There is one inconvenience in using leather tanned with it, namely, it 

 imparts a yellow colour to the stockings of the wearer. This can be 

 avoided by subjecting the leather to a particular but expensive process; 



The same remedial iwwers, though in less degree, are possessed by 

 quercitron bark as by that of the common oak-bark. It enjoys, justly 

 or unjustly, the same reputation in America, as a preventive or cure of 

 iption ; so persons threatened with consumption resort to bark- 

 mills and tan-works. For medical purposes an infusion with rold water 



: M 



yCKRCUS PEDUNCULATA OVilld.) The bark of this species, 

 the true British oak, is used in medicine. Its appearance varies with 

 the age of the bark, as well as of the tree from which it is obtained. 

 Its excellence is determined by the period of the year when the tree 

 baa been barked. The best is obtained from coppice oaks, not from 

 old or full-grown trees, and is better from the branches than the trunk. 

 According to Sir H. Davy, the greatest quantity of tannin exists in 

 the bark in spring, at the time when the buds begin to open (' Agricul. 

 ( 'lieinigtry,' 4th ed., p. 87), which is confirmed by Biggins. This is the 

 period usually selected to decorticate the trees, owing to the greater 

 ease with which it is then effected, the cambium which exists between 

 the bark and wood allowing of their easier separation. The interior 

 cortical layers are much richer in the active principles than the 

 external ones. 



Oak-bark is commonly met with in pieces from one to two feet long. 

 That from young stems or branches is generally thin, tolerably smooth, 

 having a silvery or ash-gray cuticle, and frequently clothed with lichens, 

 chiefly of the genus Vrmiraria or OpeyrafJm. When newly detached 

 it is whitish internally, but by exposure to the air it deepens into 

 brown, and becomes fibrous and cracked. The bark of old 

 much thicker, very rough and cracked, and greatly inferior in quality. 

 The chief chemical constituents are : tannin (impure tannic acid), 

 tannates of lime, magnesia, potash, &c., gallic acid, unciystallisable 

 sugar, pectin, and lignin. It has the pecidiar and weft-known odour, of 

 tan, and a bitter astringent, but afterwards sweetish, mucilaginous 

 taste. 



Oak-bark possesses all the properties of astringent substances, except 

 the power of decomposing tartar-emetic. [ASTHINUKNTK ; ANTIMONY.] 

 It is more employed externally than internally as a wash or injection. 

 By long-continued application it can almost tan the living tissue, and 

 iitln r strengthen a weak part of the skin, or convert a secreting into a 

 non-secreting surface, as in cases of prolapsed or inverted uterus. One 

 of the most valuable applications, and at the same time cheapest, to 

 surface* threatened with gangrene from pressure, as in fevers, IT old 

 Ix-dridden persons, is a wash formed by digesting oak-bark in \v. ak 

 distilled vinegar, and, after straining, adding hydrochloride of ammonia. 

 It in not only unnecessary, but injurious, to make a decoction 

 bark : no tanner would think of boiling his oak-bark before sleeping 

 In- hides in it. 



Powdered oak-bark with chamomile flowers is a cheap and often 

 effectual mode of checking the paroxysms of agues. 



(Col Vat.; 1'ereira's Mat. Med.) 



Kl US 1XKKCT01UA. [GALLS.] 



(H > IKON. [! 



(JUI TAM. In those statutes by which certain acts are prohibited 

 under a penalty, it is usual to encourage the enforcing of the penalty 

 by apjiointing the whole or some part of it to he p ij,l t.. th. 

 who shall tike the risk and trouble, and incur the odium, of bringing 

 the matter U-fore a court of law. Where the part, < oimnonly a 

 moiety, in given to the king, the infonncr suing for the penalty pro- 

 ceeds in this form : "A. B., who, as well (7111 lam) for our lady the 

 i as for himself, in this behalf prosecutes, complains," &c. 



When a 7i lam or other penal action is commend <' |*>rson 



i in afterwards sue the defendant in respect of the same ,,;!. n< . . what 

 ever the remit of the first action may lie. It is therefore not unusual 



for offenders against penal statutes to seek to protect themselves by 

 >K one of their friend* to MIO. This, however, will ! of no 

 avail against a subsequent informer suing ///! /./',, provided the 

 fraud and collusion in getting up the first action can lie shown. 



; \ KM i TOKKS. [KI :.*.] 



'.'I'lcK HEDGES [HEWJES.] 



i.'I'H'KI.IMK. ICAU-II-JI.] 



.M'H'KSANDS are those minnnfl of loose or moving sand which are 

 fi ii mod on many sea-coast* and generally at the mouths of > 

 of the Nile and Senegal are among the most remarkable for those 

 accumulations. The sands are generally conveyed by th. 

 the interior of the country, and being at first arrested by the w 

 the ocean, they become, in many instances, by the action of the winds 

 and tides, moveable /(/, which are very dangerous to shipping. The 

 loose siuids on the coasts are, when dry, dii\en by winds over tl. 

 which they then eover oi'ten to a o.nisidorablc depth, overlaying the 

 fertile ground and occasionally entombing \\ h..le villages : the coasts of 

 I '..in. vail and Norfolk in England, and of Jutland in Denmark, are 

 particularly subject to these encroachments [DrxKs]; and it is 

 that in the latter country there arc v.ist l>eds of sand so loose as to !* 

 incajmble of MI;. porting the weight of a man. In Greenland there is a 

 chain m" ice hills between two promontories of moving sand, which is 

 di ivcii by the winds far out to sea. 



The easterly movement which gives the character of quicksand* to 



naceous deposits in and around the mouths of th. 

 place at all depths, and is extended to the shore itself. It is caused by 

 the westerly gales and prevailing north-west breezes, which have also 

 produced a range of sand-dunes extending from Cape Bunion at the 

 most northerly point of Lake Boulos, eastward of the Rosetta I 

 of the river, to the mouth of the Damietta branch. These winds are 

 both the accumulating and moving causes of this " stream of sand- 

 dunes," as it has been termed. As fast as the wind removes the 

 sun-dried sand from the beach, the surf re-accumulates it again, during 

 every gale. Tho quicksands, therefore, are littoral as well as i 

 phenomena. There is a constant movement of the sand in the . 

 both along the shore, and within the shore (which here merely sei 

 the waters of the sea from those of the Delta), commencing from the 

 liosettu mouth on the east, and extending to the Damietta mouth on 

 the west. It is also blown along the coast in a succession of dunes by 

 one wind, or in part back again into the sea by another, le- 

 hut more violent wind. The subject is importantly connected with 

 that of one of the most remarkable projected enterprises of the present 

 age, the " canalisation " of the Isthmus of Suez, in order to ei 

 navigable communication between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. 

 The subject has been treated by one of our most eminent i; 

 surveying officers, Capt. Thomas A. B. Spratt, U.N., F.H.S., in ' An 

 Investigation of the Kffect of the prevailing Wave influence on the N ile's 

 Deposits, and upon the Littoral of its Delta,' dated Alexandria, July !', 

 1858, printed with four lithographs of maps and sections, by the 

 Iliitish Admiralty in the following year; and from which copious 

 extracts have been made public in a parliamentary return of I860. 

 The ] .receding notice of the Niletic deposits has been derived from the 

 original paper. Capt. Sprat t's actual investigation was of the most 

 practical nature, by the observation of the winds and sea-currents, the 

 examination of the coast, that of the sea-bottom by dredging, and the 

 mineralogical and chemical examination of the deposits. The . 

 broadly, is this, that the Mediterranean entrance to the proposed canal 

 would be perpetually filled up by the moving sands of the Nile drifted 

 by the sea along the coast, and that, in the attempt to construct and 

 maintain it, millions of money would be fruitlessly lost in the depths 

 of the sea. 



The sand of Bagshot Heath, which rests on the London clay, is in 

 many places, at a few feet below the surface, saturate. 1 \\ ith water so 

 as to constitute a perfect quicksand : and, on the borders of Oman, in 

 Arabia, there was discovered by Baron von Wrede a remarkable yuiok- 

 sand, which is said to be more than 60 feet d 



nriCKSILVKK. [MuuTiiV.] 



QUIKTISM is the name of the doctrine of certain ascetic ( 'In i 

 who taught that the chief duty of man was to be wrapped up in the 

 continual contemplation and love of God, so as to become totally 

 indopoiident of outward cin and of the influence of the 



senses, and they contended that when a man arrived at this ,-i 

 perfection, the soul had no further occasion for prayer and other 



external di \> 'ices. Quietism is, in fact, the extren t' 



asceticism and of contemplative .i. votion. There have been men so 

 disposed in all ages of Christianity, without forming a sect, and 

 the Mohan. mod.. IM ami Brahmins have their i|iiictists; but it 

 Spanish priest called Michael Mohnos, in the l"th century, who tirst 

 embodied the principles of quietism in his works, which wer. 

 demnod at Home, where the author wag imprisoned anil died in 16P6. 

 About the name time Madame Guy on, or Ouioii, in France, sh...\. 1 

 herself a great advocate of quietism. She w8 supported by For 

 osed by Bossuet. [tirvoN and FKXI i " IMv.] 



','1 IN T A, or QUINIA, one of the alkaloids of cinchona M 

 jiropertiei of. The mode of procuring this and other alkaloids from 

 bark, and the mode of forming some of the numerous salts and com- 

 binations of these bodies, are already given under Ci.\ x.\, AI.K M.IHIH 



UK. Soon after their discovery they were employed in the treatment 





