462 — General Notes. . | June, 
class may be illustrated by such articles as flour in mustard, 
chicory in coffee and terra alba in cream of tartar. The third 
class is what may be called accidental. In many instances of this 
class, it is the duty of the health officer to interfere and confiscate 
the goods, but the simple deprivation of the articles is generally 
sufficient punishment. In other cases, in this class, the presence 
of the impurity arises from methods of manufacture, and if it does 
not exceed a certain limited amount it may be neglected, and is 
generally neglected in trade. For instance, cream of tartar gen- 
erally contains tartrate of calcium; if this does not exceed six or 
seven per cent. the article passes as pure. If it runs much higher 
the article is rejected or passes as a low grade with a reduction in 
rice. Belonging to the same class is the small amount of sand 
oftentimes found in Cuban sugars, and in general all the impurities 
in our every-day food which are present, not from design, but 
from some imperfection in the process of manufacture. 
The first operation in our search for adulteration is to make 
ourselves thoroughly acquainted with the genuine article, and in 
order to make ourselves acquainted it is not sufficient to merely 
read the accounts we may find in the books, but we nust take 
the articles to our laboratories and submit them to every test 
that we can devise. Perhaps the most difficult branch of adultera- 
tion that the chemist has to deal with is the sophistication of 
ground articles. So long as the article is in its natural state but 
little trouble is experienced; we can readily detect any changes 
made in it, but when ground we have no resource except the 
microscope or chemical tests. Many substances which contain 
starch grains can be readily recognized by the microscope. Flour 
in mustard at once shows. The various arrowroots are readily 
heavier portion was rice flour. In this case the usual order of 
adulteration was reversed, and a more expensive article was added 
to a cheaper one in order to raise the grade of the whole. Much 
has been said and written in regard to the adulteration of coffee, 
but so far as now no one has yet found in the coffee any 
article more injurious than. the coffee itself. Chicory may De 
readily distinguished from coffee by the fact that when the ground 
article is thrown into water, if chicory, peas, rye or Indian corn 
are present, they rapidly sink to the bottom, while the coffee 
oats. The adulterations also quickly impart to cold water & 
brown color, while coffee colors it but slowly. Cream of tartar 
is, perhaps, the substance next on the list at present which gives 
us the most trouble. The common adulterations of this article 
are rice flour, which is easily detected by the microscope and by 
turning blue when treated with tincture of iodine. Terra alba or 
