50 THE AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OF PHARMACY. 
up into cakes and stored till dry enough for packing, and then forwarded to 
Calcutta for sale in the bazaars. The utilitarian value of lac dye over cochineal 
in a humid climate, especially in dyeing the scarlet cloth of the soldiers’ coats, 
lies in its power to resist the action of human perspiration. 
Shellac . — The manufacture of shellac is an entirely distinct process. The 
seed-lac* at the bottom of the pan is removed, dried, and sifted. The finer 
dust, which is highly inflammable, is removed. The lac workers of India 
make it up into bracelets and ornaments of various kinds. 
The coarse lac which is to be made into shell is put into long sausage-shaped 
bags of about two inches diameter, made of cloth like American drill. Under a 
shed is a charcoal fire about two feet long and six inches wide ; alongside of the 
fireplace is a bamboo pole, about three feet long and four inches diameter, filled 
with warm sand, inclining at a slight angle to the ground. On each side of the 
fireplace is sitting a man, but more generally a woman, each holding an end of 
the sausage roll-looking bag about twelve inches high over the clear charcoal fire, 
turning the roll or bag briskly until the lac begins to ooze through the 
interstices^of the cloth ; the bag is still kept twisted until a coating of soft lac 
covers the outside. It is then removed from the fire, and a small disc of lac is 
placed here and there over the surface of the bamboo by a rapid turn of the 
wrist. A third woman is sitting at one end of the bamboo, holding in both 
hands a strip of aloe leaf, resembling very much a thin magic wand ; this she 
pushes forward over the soft lac, repeating the motion three or four times, when 
a thin film of the lac covers over the round surface of the bamboo, which is 
immediately transferred into an open basket ; the lac, drying rapidly, cracks up 
into many pieces — this is shellac. 
Button-lac is simply shellac without spreading. 
Sheet-lac is made in a similar manner to shellac, only the sheets are much 
thicker, and the woman removing it from the bamboo in a supple condition, and 
with both hands, stretches it over the fire, in order to remove the wave-like 
furrows which are impressed on it by the fibrous surface of the aloe leaf. While 
doing this it is not uncommon to see the woman — who performs her work 
intelligently— lift the hot sheet to her mouth and bite out any foreign substance, 
such as dirt^or sand, filling in the hole so made by a rapid movement of her hand 
over the sheet. The average rate of wages is an anna and a quarter (1| of a 
penny) per day. 
We regret to have to record the death, in his seventy-second year, of Dr 
Thomas Andrews, F.K.S., whose researches so largely extended our knowledge of 
the conditions under which gases pass into the liquid state ; also of Mr. Alfred 
Tribe, another indefatigable scientific worker in the domain of chemistry. 
Action of Light on Iodoform Preparations. — The action of light on 
iodoform collodion and iodoform salve has already been observed. To determine 
the change which takes place, E. Fabini ( JPharm . Post, xviii., p. 975) made two 
solutions of iodoform in petroleum benzine, the one in a transparent and the 
other in an opaque bottle. In about ten minutes the solution in the colourless 
bottle began to change colour, and in about twenty minutes it turned deep red. 
On the following day it was found that the solution in the dark bottle was 
still unchanged. A portion of it, exposed to direct sunlight, was immediately 
reduced, and acquired a deep-red colour. It is evident, therefore, that a solution 
of iodoform in fat, ether, benzine, etc., is very sensitive to light, the iodoform 
being reduced with the separation of free iodine . — The Druggists' Circular and. 
Chemical Gazette. 
