38 
Pure and Mixed Linseed- Cakes. 
carelessness ; for it may be taken for granted that no oil-cake 
maker is likely, willingly, to mix with cake materials which 
he knows to be poisonous. 
Thus, when the sweepings of seed-warehouses, or granaries and 
general provision stores, together with various broken cakes and 
similar cheap materials are pressed into compound cakes, it 
happens at times that poisonous materials are accidentally intro- 
duced into such cakes. I have myself picked out from broken 
linseed-cake and linseed-cake-dust sold for re-crushing, castor-oil- 
beans, resin, and gums having the appearance of scammony ; and 
in dozens of instances I have found castor-cake in linseed-cake. 
The following analyses of three poisonous cakes, in which I 
found castor-cake, are here introduced for the purpose of 
showing that although they were equally poisonous, and owed 
their prejudicial properties to the same poisonous ingredient, 
they widely differed in their proximate composition, and that 
the mere chemical analysis of a suspected cake does not 
necessarily throw light upon its true character : — 
Table XI. — Composition of three samples of poisonous Linseed-Cake, 
containing Castor-oil Beans. 
No. 1. 
No. 2. 
No. 3. 
6-24 
11-34 
13-88 
Oil 
15-02 
8-22 
7-47 
* Albuminous compounds (flesh-forming matters^ 
24-75 
30-93 
36-31 
} 41-33{ 
32-75 
22-64 
9-09 
12-02 
12-66 
7-67 
7-68 
100-00 
100-00 
100-00 
336 
4-93 
5-81 
6-42 
2-20 
2-52 
A glance at the preceding analyses shows : — 
1. That No. 1 was very dry, and No. 2 rather a damp cake, 
containing more than twice as much water as No. 1. 
2. That the proportion of oil varied from 7^ to 15 per cent, 
in the three cakes. 
3. That No. 1 was comparatively poor in nitrogenous com- 
pounds, whilst the cake under No. 3 was unusually rich in these 
compounds. 
A comparison of the percentage composition of the poisonous 
cake marked No. 2, with that given in a preceding page for 
several pure linseed-cakes, further shows a close agreement in the 
proportions of the several constituents mentioned in the analysis. 
