124 QUAKTEKLY JOURNAL. 



CHEMICAL EXAMINATIONS OF THE RICE PLANT AND RICE SOIL IN 

 SOUTH-CAROLINA, 



1. — Of Clean Commercial Rice. 



Burned in a porcelain capsule under the muffle, until ali com- 

 bustible matter had disappeared, a blebby glass-like ash remained, 

 weio-hing 0.404 per cent, or less than half a part in one hundred 

 of the rice consumed.* Corrected statement of mineral constitu- 

 ents of clean rice=0.487 per cent. 



Composition of 100 parts of tliis residuum. 



Phosphate of lime (bone-earth,) with decided 

 traces of intermixed phosphate of magnesia, . . 76 .20 



Phosphate of potassa, nearly 5 per cent, ' 



Silica, sometimes as high as 20 per cent.,. . . 



And the following salts in traces only. They 

 are enumerated in the supposed order of 

 their abundance, viz : ) " ' ^^ '^^ 



Sulphate of potassa, 



Chloride of potassium, 



Carbonate of lime, 



Carbonate of magnesia, . < 



2. — Of the Cotyledon^ commonly called the eye or chit of the grain . 



Ignited under a muffle on a porcelain plate, it burns with a 

 bright light, and the ash flows into a glass. From the intimate 

 way in which it adhered to the plate, it was impossible to deter- 

 mine its weight, or even its composition, in a satisfactory manner. 

 The expression 6.824 per cent, however, may be taken as an ap- 

 proximation to the weight of the residuum. In composition, it 

 appears scarcely to differ from the ash of clean rice, except in 

 being somewhat richer in lime, and in the phosphoric and sul- 

 phuric acids. 



3. — Of the fine Rice Flour, as it comes down on the bulk. 



It gives, on burning, a bulky, porous ash, weighing 10.746 per 

 cent, of the flour consumed. Corrected as above==12.30 per ct. 



_ . ^ ^ ^ 



• It beinff rnquisitc to determine the 'norf^anic in<^redienfs of rice, and of the vari- 

 ous parts of the entire ])lant, us it may reasonably be supposed they are returned to 

 the soil again on the decomposition of ti>e plant ami its parts, (whetlier taking place 

 spontaneously or otherwise,) and not to give those ingredients in all cases as they are 

 actually yielded to us in the prc-cess of destructive analysis, I shall subjoin many of 

 the constituents of the ashy residua not as found, but rather as the principles of che- 

 mistry authorise us to deduce them, in eccordance with the above requisition. 



