April 1, 1899.] 
THE TROPICAL 
AORICULTURIST. 
691 
CINCHONA ANAIA'SIS AND THE 
GERMAN FACTORIES. 
It waa, perhaps, somewhat rash on our part to 
undertake the terrible araoaat of research that has 
been necessary to sjy with auythiD<r like conficleiice 
what is a fair average per ce 'tage of alkaloidal con- 
tent in the bark which has entered Germiny during 
the last few years. Even after comparing extensive 
series of analyses that have been made officially in 
Java and British India, and availing ourselves of tho 
kind assistance of Blr. David Hov/avd, we feel that 
our figures ought to be placed before readers with 
explanations of the way they have been arrived at, 
f-o that they shall not bear an appearance of 
absolute precision. Conimei'cial men, however, 
will be satisfied by a very brief statement of these, 
and as our object has been mainly to show that 
although oonfes.sedly the 5 per cent qiiiiiinf average 
we allowed in the bark imported into Germany was 
too high, it was not so mucli too high an alhalonlal 
figure as to throw doubt on the official Government 
figures of the imports of bark and exports of qui iue. 
We threw out a suggestion last week that several 
correspondents had been misled through ignoii'ig 
altogether the content of alkaloid in b 'rli; o.hac 
than quinine. On the other liiina, the Libora ory 
man iiiight make a mistake in ihs other direc- 
tion by looking upon the whole of the alkaloid 
in the bark a^i so much nierchantaole pvoiUict. 
To avoid both mistakes, we have employed in our in- 
quiries, and also in what follows, tlie term " available 
alkaloid " to express all that can be extracted from 
the bark and sold. This will, as a practical result, 
almost resolve itself into calculiting the amount of 
quinine and ciuohonidine in the bark, and that, though 
subjected to checks by ns, is ve y nearly the principle 
followod in our calcuLitions. 
The matter then stands thus : Wf sent to Germany 
and Holland in 189.^ 8 (inclusive) about 7,360 tons out 
of a lolal of 21,121 tons that Germany received alto- 
gethor, most of the rest of her imports being from .Java, 
through Ilolland, or direct. Tue baik we sent ber had 
amoiigit it about :-!,70G tons of In iian, 2,435 cons of 
Cevlon, CU2 tons of A.frican, 'I'A'i tons of Javanese, and 
370 tons of South American, assuming that we sent her 
supplies of these b irks in the same proportion as we 
received them. Now, if trustworthy analyses of a 
comprehensive charactei' of all these barks had been 
pnolished, it would be con paralively easy to cah'ulate 
how much available alkaloid Germany has obtained 
through England : and the Java bark content presents 
little difficulty in this way. But we liave to gather 
our figures for the ''Eiglish" bark from all 
Bort.-i of sources. Taking the E ist Indian as orie 
that has been subjected to independent analyses 
of a fairly extensive character, and neglecting such 
of these as aro abnormal, we note that Ho.jper in 
1804-90 sp«aks of b.rk which had aqu nine sulphate 
yield of 3-94 per cent and a content besides 0'71 per 
cent cinchonidine, '13 par cent quiniuidine, and •52 
cincbonine as being of the average composition of 
offici%ilis bark. Again, the averog-i quinine sul- 
phate yicdd of all crown bark ground up at one of 
the Government factories in India during 1SH9-97 
was 3'G per cent. We hare spoken of the yield partly 
because — and this is important to note- — the factory 
results agreed well with the laboratory analyses. 
These analyses give much higher content than what 
was obtained, for inslano*, by Messrs. Boehringer 
and Scehne frem East Indian bark a few yens pre- 
Tiously (188S-1S89 and 1890;. But they cover yeari 
whi h wo are now noting, and are of a comprthen- 
sIts character. 
Foll.)\vii!g tlie same plan with red bark, we note 
th it llunper, in ."jG specintens, found in average of 
140 per cm qn'oinfi n.il sulphate), 2 2j i er cent 
ciiicboiiidine, 192 pi-r cent cinchunine. A correspond- 
ing analysis of crown bark gave 2 93 per rent of 
quinine (nol sulphate), and I SK of cinchonidine 
beaides oilier alkaloids, llcd bark, whether from 
Java, Ceylon, India, or Africa, does not 
dilTor much. In tho case of the South American 
barks, the percentage nowadays is not imnortant as 
a commercial problem, but Germany has taken large 
am mntb of quinine from cultivated oalisaya bark 
during the last ten years, and she has found it to 
average pretty well 4i per cent of quinine sulphate, 
containing little else. 
These figures and others which we have in our 
possession lead us to think that if we allow 4J per 
cent as an amount of "available alkaloid" in the 
bark Germany has obtained from England during the 
last six years, 5.^ per cent of quinine sulphate in all 
the bark she has obtained elsewhere, and in addition 
to the latter 2J per cent of cinchonidine from the red 
bark site has obtained from Java (and not through 
us), we shall form a fair estimate of the total avail- 
able alkaloid that Gprmany has purchased during that 
period. This would give a purchase of 1,113 tons of 
alkaloid. The average for the six years was 1,082 tons, 
leaving about 31 tons, (and thr; residue of former vears) 
for home consumption during these six years, ani for 
stock at the end of 1898. —British and Colonial Druyc/ist. 
Poor Mauritius: A comn.arison between 
Mauritius production in 1892 aini lS97.-Th.j6w- 
veen, in a recent article, discus- i: g one of tiie 
arguments alduced by the Secietaiy of .btate ia 
justification of tiie refusal of Her Majp.sty'.s Go- 
vernuient to guarantee a Loan of £50:1,000 to the 
Colony, observes rluit Mauritius is at the present 
time more in need of the Imperial assistance than 
.she was in 1892 when slie received generous hel[> 
from the niother country. In support of thi- con- 
tention, our contemporary piooeedsto quote liguies 
to give parciculars. In 1892, after the terrible 
hurricane that swept over t!ie Island and spread ruin 
ami desolation on all sides, the total production 
of su.gar amounted to lb. 1 80,000.000 which was 
sold at an average price of K12 per 100 lb. 
yielding therefore a revenue of H21,(iu0,00o. In 
1897, although the crop W'a.s a lander one, reach- 
ing lb 240,000,1)00, the value received was 
R19,2J0,O00 only of K 2,400,000 less than in 1892 
the ex]jlanation for the ditfeience being that while 
tlie average price fetciied R12 per 100 lb in 1892 
the average rate at which we sold our sugar in 
1897 was R8 per 100 lb. Fun herniore, on account 
of the famine in India causing a rise in the rice 
market, the [datiters and the colony in general 
hail to spend more money on that commodity. 
It is estimated that on that head alone, t ;e loss 
to Mauritius could not have been less than 
114,000,000. If we add to tliis amount the 
K2, 00,000 for decline in value, the tct il lo-s to 
the colony would reach i he higli tign re of 6,400,001) 
on a gross leceijit of Rl9, 200,00 J, leavl ig a net 
prolit of 1115,200.000 as compaied with ihat of 
1{21,600 OOo ill 1892. So that in 1897, Mauritius 
was less rich by R6, 400, 000 than in 1892, Yet in 
the latter year. Her Majesty's Govi rnment tlioug t 
it ini[)erative to give tln^ir guarantee for a loan 
of £GiOO0O, while in 1897, when the circums- 
tances of the Colony, taken as a whcdc, have 
been aggravated, we are told that to obtain the 
support of the mother countij', it is not really 
essential that we should demonstrate our actual 
distress, but that we should show that it has cmiie 
about in a .'^inldeii anil unexpected manner. Mr. 
Chamberlain seems to liitve been held personally 
le.-ipou^ible in some quarters for the rejrction of 
the request of tlie Chamber ot Agricnliur.'. This 
is unfair to him. An ir liiiary loan contracted by 
a 1 'rown Cidoiiy n quires, it is true, 'he approval 
of the Secretary' of State for the Col<>nie.s who a<!is 
on his own personal auiliority in ilie ni.'itier, but 
a loan with tiie giinrantee of (jreat Britain re- 
quires the concurrence of the Cabinet and the as* 
sent of the Imperial I'arlinnient. 
