SPICES AND CONDIMENTS. 173 



ents, being considered desirable for toning down the pungency and 

 adding to tlie keeping qualities of the ground material. Of late years, 

 howe ver, a reaction has taken place, and it is now possible to find 

 brands of pure ground mustard. 



In most of the samples which have come into our hands for examina- 

 tion flour and coloring matter are the only foreign substances which have 

 been met with. From the investigations of foods chemists abroad, it 

 would appear on the authority of Hassall and others that other species 

 of mustard seed, rape seed, cayenne pepper, ginger, potato flour, rice 

 pea flour, seed meals, and several mineral substances are frequently 

 found in the mustards of commerce, a conclusion which we have found 

 justified by the presence in some of the lower-grade mustards which have 

 come into our hands of yellow corn, ginger, mustard hulls, gypsum, and 

 sand. The presence of these adulterants, which is only too common in 

 the cheaper article when sold in bulk and under no brand, can be deter- 

 mined by mechanical means and by their structure, which is quite dif- 

 ferent from that of the mustard, and by the starches, which character- 

 ize some of them, as already explained. 



While the adulterants of mustard, therefore, are, owing to the char- 

 acteristic structure of the seed, easily detected with the microscope, in 

 cases where there is doubt, or where further information is desired as 

 to the probable proportion of diluent, recourse must be had to deter- 

 minations of the chemical constituents of the sample. 



CHEMISTRY OF MUSTAKD. 



Several investigators have made proximate analyses of mustard. 

 Hassall has collected the following in regard to its composition, and has 

 also made several analyses of pure and adulterated samples : 



Of these seeds no very complete quantatitive analyses have as yet been made, al- 

 .ough many highly important particulars have been ascertained respecting their 

 mposition ; thus black or brown mustard, as it is now generally named, consists 

 the most part of fixed oil, myronic acid CioHigNS^Oiq, which is combined with pot- 

 ih, forming a myronate of potash, and which acid is converted into the volatile oil 



mustard or aulpliocyanide of allyl C4H 5 NS r n tr ( S through the agency of the 



in, another constituent of brown mustard, when the two are brought into con- 

 tact through the medium of water, vegetable albumen, a bitter principle, a little gum 

 and sugar, a peculiar green substance, cellulose and mineral matter. 



White mustard differs essentially in its composition from brown; it also contains 

 fixed oil, but in lie u of myronic acid, convertible as described into the volatile oil of 

 mustard, it contains a non-volatile, bitter and acrid salt, termed sulpliocyanide ofsyna- 

 piwetCnH^N-SOftOr CieHoaNOoCNHS), myrosin, gum, cellulose, and mineral matter. 



Now it is on the volatile oil and the acrid and somewhat bitter salt that the pungency 

 and acridity of mustard depends, and hence wo see a strong reason why in the mus- 

 tards of commerce the farina of the two species should be blended together ; of the two 

 active principles the volatile oil is by far the more important, and hence the seed of 

 the brown mustard possesses the greatest commercial value. It should be stated that 

 Henrie and Garot affirms that brown mustard contains the acrid principle as well as 

 the white ; this statement wo have been able to verify as shown specially by the 

 action of nitric acid, caustic potash, and ferric chloride on the alcoholic extract. 



