110 



CHINA. 



CHLOROPHYL. 



82,927 piculs in all (1 picul=133J Ibs.). There 

 were 2,300 piculs of Persian opium, which 

 has been much used of late years to mix with 

 the other sorts. The rest of the importation 

 was exclusively of Indian production. The do- 

 mestic product, whether the culture is for- 

 bidden, connived in, or encouraged by the 

 local authorities, is equal to the total imports 

 several times multiplied, and acquires larger 

 proportions annually. The Treaty of Tientsin 

 fixed the maximum tariff which the Chinese 

 Government might impose upon Indian opium. 

 China has persistently endeavored to obtain the 

 rescission of this clause. The income derived 

 by the Indian Government from the monopoly 

 of the opium manufacture has increased moan- 

 while from 4,000,000 to 9,000,000, and the 

 cultivation of opium in India is still spread- 

 ing. Financial considerations, supported by the 

 usages of international law, would explain and 

 justify China's attitude in demanding the re- 

 moval of the restriction upon her right to 

 regulate her own tariff. There are evidences, 

 however, of sincerity in the present efforts 

 of the Chinese authorities to discourage and 

 gradually exterminate the pernicious habit of 

 opium-smoking. The Indian traffic might 

 properly engage their attention pre-eminently 

 on account of the spread of the vice among the 

 respectable classes, who use the Indian-grown 

 article only. The number of persons in China 

 who suffer from the opium-habit is estimated 

 by the inspector-general of customs, Mr. Hart, 

 at not over 2,000,000, or of one per cent of 

 the total population. The Secretary of State 

 of China recently addressed a letter to the 

 British Government, in which he described the 

 pernicious effects of the traffic. There are 

 indications that when the demand to rescind 

 the oppressive clause in the treaty with Great 

 Britain is urged, the power of public opinion 

 in England will compel its abrogation, notwith- 

 standing the grave problem in the finances of 

 India, from one sixth to one third of whose 

 revenues are drawn from this ignoble traffic. 



The total foreign commerce of China in 1880, 

 as returned at the treaty ports, was 157,000,- 

 000 taels, a larger amount than ever before 

 reached. The share of the British Empire 

 amounted to at least 120,000,000 taels, and 

 that of Great Britain alone to 49,000,000. The 

 proportion of the carrying trade conducted in 

 British ships is as great, 73 per cent of the 

 exports and imports being carried in British 

 bottoms. The coast wise trade, 40 per cent of 

 which was once done by American vessels, is 

 now equally divided between native and Brit- 

 ish craft. The extraordinary quantities of 

 American cottons brought into China in 1878 

 and 1879, which caused a tremor in British 

 commercial circles, ceased to be exported as 

 soon as better prices ruled in the United States. 

 The high average prices obtainable in the do- 

 mestic market seem to deter the American 

 manufacturers from extending their facilities 

 and entering into serious competition with the 



British cotton-millers for this important trade 

 which the high reputation of their goods places 

 within their grasp. The import of American 

 drillings fell off from 633,000 pieces in 1879 to 

 172,000 pieces in 1880, while British drills rose 

 from 387,000 pieces in 1879 to 028,000 pieces in 

 1880. American sheetings continue in demand 

 at prices which tempt American exporters; 

 but they are being imitated and undersold by an 

 inferior Lancashire fabric. The warning given 

 by the marked preference of the consumers for 

 unadulterated goods in the years of American 

 competition has been heeded in England. 

 There was a much smaller proportion of 

 heavily sized goods imported into China in 

 1880 than in previous years. The importa- 

 tion of the Manchester staples, gray shirtings 

 and T-cloths, in which there has never been 

 any competition, increased from 3,130,000 

 pieces in 1865 to 7,519,000 pieces in 1875, 

 and 8,260,000 pieces in 1880, while the prices 

 have fallen. 



CHLOKOPHYL, PHYSIOLOGICAL FUNCTION 

 OF. The conversion of the carbonic acid of the 

 atmosphere into living protoplasm in the green 

 organs of plants may be considered the start- 

 ing-point of animate nature. The first living 

 organisms which appeared upon the planet 

 must have been chlorophyl- containing plants. 

 All the phenomena of life are consequent and 

 dependent upon the constructive operations 

 by which the primary gases and their simple 

 compounds are transformed into highly com- 

 plex substances within the bodies of plants, 

 chief of which is the formation of hydrocar- 

 bons by the leaves. Animals, and the few 

 plants which are without chlorophyl, only sub- 

 sist by the destruction and resolution into 

 their lifeless elements of the substances thus 

 built up by green plants. The nature of this 

 primary and fundamental process in the chem- 

 istry of life is a mystery. The green coloring 

 matter of the leaves has seemed to be the chief 

 agent in vegetable alimentation, and its action 

 seems to be excited by the sunlight. The 

 results of the German botanist Pringsheim, 

 who has devoted several years to an investi- 

 gation of the office of chlorophyl, even if his 

 theoretical deductions are not conclusive in all 

 points, throw a new light upon the properties 

 and action of chlorophyl and substantially for- 

 ward the solution of the greatest problem of 

 organic chemistry. 



Careful observations of the optical proper- 

 ties of chlorophyl confirmed the findings of 

 previous investigators. Chlorophyl solutions 

 of various degrees of density were found by 

 spectroscopic analysis to absorb the blue and 

 violet rays in a much greater measure than the 

 red, yellow, and green. The structure of the 

 chlorophyl corpuscles has been established for 

 the first time by Pringsheim. They consist of 

 a honey- combed spherule of some solid sub- 

 stance, probably an albuminoid, whose cavi- 

 ties are filled with an oil containing the chlo- 

 rophyl in solution. In the chlorophyl corpus- 



