1836.] On the preparation of Opium for the China market. 173 



the facility, of bringing in all their opium at very nearly the standard 

 spissitude. 



In some cases it would appear, from the fluid state in which they 

 bring it for sale, as if they expected every drop of water which they 

 add to it, to be assimilated and converted into opium. Occasionally, 

 it would seem that they had admitted some suspicions of its having 

 been watered too much ; and their only remedy is to drive off the 

 superfluous water by boiling : an operation which speedily reduces the 

 mixture to a blackened and charred condition, easily recognized. 



18. A more ingenious fraud, but which is seldom practised, is, that 

 of washing out the soluble and most valuable part of the opium, and 

 bringing for sale the residual mass. la this process, the opium loses 

 its translucency, and the redness of its colour : it loses its adhesiveness 

 also, not adhering to the hand like opium which has not been robbed 

 of its soluble principles ; and by these marks, without going further, 

 the fraud is detected. Sand is now and then added, to increase the 

 weight ; and is at once detected by its grittiness when rubbed between 

 a plate and a spatula. 



Soft clayey mud is also, but very rarely, used for the same purpose : 

 it always impairs the colour and translucency ; and can, as well as 

 sand, be detected, and its quantity accurately ascertained, by washing 

 the opium with a large quantity of water, and collecting the sediment, 

 which is the clayey mud. 



Sugar and gur, or coarse molasses, are sometimes employed to ad- 

 ulterate opium : they invariably ferment, and give it a sickly, sweetish, 

 venous, or acescent odour, easily known. 



Cow-dung, the pulp of the dhaturd, or thorn-apple, and the gummy 

 resinous juice of the Ml, or Bengal quince, are seldom met with as 

 fraudulent ingredients : the first may be detected by drying it to a 

 powder, or by washing it with water, either of which processes brings 

 under the eye the undigested shreds of vegetable matter constituting 

 the animal's food ; but the two last are extremely difficult of detec- 

 tion, if not added in quantity sufficient to affect the colour and 

 smell of the opium, which generally happens in the few instances 

 of their occurrence. The seeds of the dhaturd are apt to get mixed 

 with the opium, and afford a ready means of detection. A strange, 

 but not uncommon, mode of adulteration is the addition of pounded 

 poppy seeds : if reduced to a fine powder, the oleaginous seeds might 

 enter into an imperfect chemical union with the kindred resinoid prin- 

 ciple of the opium : but the fraud is never so skilfully effected as to 

 produce this result ; and the hard particles of the seeds are perceptible 

 to the touch and sight. Malwa opium, though less now than it was 



