230 FOODS AND FOOD ADULTERANTS. 



The amount of essential oil in our best sample exceeds Flilckiger's 

 highest, but on the ground specimens falls off sadly, 4538 and 4878 

 being almost worthless as far as this valuable ingredient goes, perhaps 

 in the first case having been exhausted for the preparation of the oil, 

 although the ash is but little reduced in amount, and in the latter being 

 nothing but mixtures, as shown under the microscope. 



The other determinations show no important variation in the constit- 

 uents, and estimation of the volatile oil would perhaps be the only 

 thing necessary in a chemical way in examining it, without it is desired 

 to go into the determination of tannin, which is as serviceable a means 

 of discriminating among allspices as was found to be the case with 

 cloves. 



In the same way our results show that good allspice contains oxid- 

 izable matter extracted by water after removal of oil, etc., by ether 

 equivalent to from 9-11.0 per cent, of quercetannic acid, the amount 

 being considerably smaller than is found in cloves. This determination 

 points out at once that specimens 4530 and 4878 are abnormal, and that 

 4534 is suspicious. It may be made of value and must be carried out 

 in the same way as with cloves. Of the eight ground specimens ex- 

 amined three were adulterated and one was suspicious, so that even of 

 this cheap spice we can hardly expect a pure supply without some pro- 

 tection. 



NUTMEG. 



Nutmegs are the interior kernel of the fruit of Myristica fragmns, a 

 tree growing in various parts of the East, but principally in the Banda 

 Islands. 



Flu'ckiger and Hahbury describe in a most excellent way their char- 

 acteristics as follows : 



The fruit is a pendulous, globose drupe, about 2 inches in diameter, and not unlike 

 a small round pear. It is marked by a furrow which passes around it, and by which 

 at maturity its thick fleshy pericarp splits into two pieces, exhibiting in its interior a 

 single seed, enveloped in a fleshy foliaceous mantle or arillus, of fine crimson hue, 

 which is mace. The dark brown shining ovate seed is marked with impressions corres- 

 ponding to the lobes of the arillus ; and on one side, which is of paler hue and slightly 

 flattened, a lino indicating the raphe may be observed. 



The bony testa does not find its way into European commerce, the so-called nutmeg 

 being merely the kernel or nucleus of the seed. Nutmegs exhibit nearly the form of 

 their outer shell with a corresponding diminition in size. The London dealers esteem 

 them in proportion to their size, the largest, which are about one inch long by eight- 

 tenths of an inch broad, and four of which will weigh an ounce, fetching the highest 

 price. If not dressed with lime, they are of a grayish brown, smooth yet coarsely 

 furrowed and veined longitudinally, marked on the flatter side with a shallow groove. 

 A transverse section shows that the inner seed coat (endopleura) penetrates into the 

 albumen in long narrow brown strips, reaching the center of the seed, thereby impart- 

 ing the peculiar marbled appearance familiar in a cut nutmeg. * * * 



The tissue of the seed can be cut with equal facility in any direction. 



Of the microscopic structure they say : 



The testa consists mainly of long, thin, radially arranged rigid cells, which are 

 closely interlaced and do not exhibit any distinct cavities. The endopleura which 



