484 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



Pimento, with mustard husk. Mixed spice, with wheat, sago, 

 potato flour, ground rice, linseed, &c. Sauces, such as the essen- 

 ces of anchovies, lobsters and shrimps, and tomato sauce with red 

 earths, as bole, Armenian and Venetian red. Tea, wdth exhausted 

 tea leaves, those of the sycamore, horse-chesnut and plum; with 

 lie tea, husk, sand and starch; colored with plumbago or black 

 lead, gum, indigo, Prussian blue, turmeric, Chinese yellow, China 

 clay, French chalk; and is flavored with sulphate of iron, catechu 

 gum, la veno beno, and Chinese botanical powder. Tobacco with 

 water, sugar, molasses and salts of various kinds ; cabbage leaves, 

 sea weed, bran, &c. Vinegar with w'ater, burnt sugar, pyrolign- 

 eous acid, sulphuric and tartaric acids. Jalaps, "with powdered 

 wood of two different kinds. Ipecacuanha, with chalk, wheat 

 flour, pow^dered w^oods and other vegetable substances. Opium, 

 with poppy. Capsules, wheat flour, sugar, gum, powdered wood, 

 and sand. Scammony, with w^heat flour, chalk, resins of guai- 

 acum and jalap, sand and woody fibre. This list does not em- 

 brace nearly all the substances employed in the adulteration of 

 articles of food, drink and drugs. It contains only those w^hich 

 have actually been discovered in the several articles named. Many 

 of these are injurious to health, and some of them poisonous. All 

 the articles experimented upon, were purchased from respectable 

 traders who exposed them for general sale ; and from thirty to 

 forty samples of the same articles were subjected to examination 

 before any report was made. With respect to coffee and its adul- 

 terations, the conclusions resulting from microscopical examina- 

 tions and analysis, were as follows : That 34 coffees, with three 

 exceptions, were adulterated; that chicory was present in 31 in- 

 stances; roasted corn in 12; beans and potato flour, each in one 

 case; that in 16 cases the adulteration consisted of chicory only; 

 in the remaining samples, chicory, roasted corn, beans, or potato 

 flour; and that in many instances, the quantity of coffee was very 

 small ; and in others, not less than one-fifth, fourth, third, and so 

 on of the whole article. Twenty-nine packages of canister coffee 

 were examined by analysis and microscope; and with one excep- 

 tion they were all adulterated; and in 28 chicory constituted the 

 chief part, notwithstanding the fine for every offence if brought 

 home to the parties, w^ould have been five hunch-ed dollars. 



Thirty-six samples of brown sugar were subjected to examina- 

 tion; and the conclusions arrived at by the committee were, that 

 fragments of cane, frequently so minute as to be visible only with 

 the microscope, w'ere detected in all the sugars except one; that 



