March, 1881. 
THE CHEMIST AND DRUGGIST. 
87 
in a warm "place. The wool takes a colour which may vary, 
according to the proportion of the magenta, from a faint rose 
to a red. One of the threads is then reserved in a tube, whilst 
the other is cut in two, the one half moistened with hydro- 
chloric acid, and the other with ammonia. In both these the 
red colour should change to a yellowish. If aniline- violet 
was present the threads will turn to a green. If the wine was 
pure, however deep the colour, the wool remains white. Par- 
ticular care must be taken that the ammonia employed con- 
tains no traces of organic colouring-matters. 
2. Detection of Sulphurous Acid in Wines. 
About 50 c.c. of the sample are placed in a small distilling 
flask, the lateral exit-tube of which projects into a test-tube 
cooled with moistened filter-paper. The wine is kept at a 
gentle boil till 2 c.c. have distilled over. The test-tube is 
taken off and a few drops of a neutral solution of silver nitrate 
are added. If even traces of sulphurous acid were present the 
liquid becomes opalescent or a white curdy precipitate of 
silver sulphite is formed, which is distinguished from silver 
chloride by its solubility in nitric acid. The distillate also 
reduces mercurous nitrate and decolourises starch iodide and 
weak solution of potassium permanganate. — Bcrichte der 
Deut. Chem. G e sells c haft zu Berlin^ No. 6, 1880. 
MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION. 
( Continued from page 56.) 
Italy. — A. Aguglione and Co., Turin, elixir. G. Baroni, 
Modena, mineral waters, &c. N. C. Bosisio, Milan, 12 bottles 
of elixir. T. H. Bradley, Florence, aquafortis. L. Bronehelli, 
Pisa, 24 bottles of alimentary pastiles. G. Cantomuso, 
Vicenza, castor oil. L. Ciosi, Florence, linseed oil and soaps. 
Annibale Collina, Bologne, elixir “ Persiano.” G. Controni, 
Lucca, various bottles of chemical products. G. Curato, Naples, 
chemical products. F. de Amezaga, Genoa, samples of ceruse. 
M. de Gioja, Bari, six bottles of tonic, first quality. De 
Pasquale Brothers and Co., Messina, orange, lemon, and 
bergamot essences. D. Fiore Franchini, Trani, elixir “ Fiore 
Franchini.” G. Guiffrido and Scotta, Catania, almond and 
castor oils, flour of mustard. Impresa Publici Macelli, 
Florence, glue, albumen of blood, first and second quality. 
Prof. P. Leonardi, Venice, medicinal gelatine. Guiseppe 
Luciano, Turin, essence of mint. G. Malvezzi, Venice, gum 
made of starch. Ceresina Manufactory, Treviso, samples 
“ Ceresina.” Massa, Solari and Co. , Genoa, albumen of blood. 
B. Morelli, Bari, specialty in medicine. A. Mueller, Messina, 
various essences. G. Oates and Co., Messina, samples of lemon 
and bergamot essences. G. Parenti, Siena, chemical products. 
Spadaro Cav. Placido, Catania, samples of chemical products. 
Radusa Brothers, Catania, chemical products. C. Rizzuto and 
Co., Reg. Calabria, orange and lemon essences, &c. Pilade 
Rossi, Brescia, medicinal waters and chemical products. Cav. 
Prof. Zinoro Silvestro, Naples, chemical products. G. Tiber- 
nacolo, Bari, hair restorer. 
Great Britain. — Burgoyne, Burbidges, Cyriax and Farries, 
Coleman-street, London, drugs, chemicals, pharmaceutical pre- 
parations. W. J. Bush and Co., Artillery-lane, Bishopsgate 
(works : Ash Grove, Hackney, London), essential oils, fruit 
essences, granulated citrate of magnesia, chemical and pharma- 
ceutical preparations, harmless vegetable colours for confection- 
ery purposes, white lead, dry and ground colours, metallic oxide 
paints, perfumery, toilet soap. F. C. Calvert and Co., 
Manchester, pure carbolic acid, preparations thereof for dis- 
infecting and agricultural purposes. J. Chambers and Co., 
132 Fenchurch-street, London, chemicals, drugs, colours, 
varnishes. Chassaing, Guenon' and Co., Southwark-street, 
London, pepsine wine and medicinal preparations. Chip- 
penham Annatto Works, liquid annatto. Corby n, Stacey, 
and Company, 300 High Holborn, London, pharmaceutical 
preparations. Day, Son and Hewitt, 22 Dorset-street, 
Baker-street, London, horse, cattle, and sheep medicines. 
E. Grillon, Wool Exchange, Coleman-street, London 
and Paris, “Tamar Indien ” lozenges. Herrings and 
Co., 40 Aldersgate- street, London, pharmaceutical prepara- 
tions, essential oils, &c. F. Hitchins, Chippenham, annatto, 
Hockin, Wilson and Co., 38 Duke-street, Manchester-square, 
London, seidlitz powders. Home and Colonial Sanitary Co., 
Dunstable, and Pownall-road, Dalston, London, antozone and 
carbolic disinfectants. Dr. J. Lelievre, 49 Southwark-street, 
London, and Paris, Iceland moss poultices, with india-rubber 
covering. M. Neustadt and Co., 25 Mincing-lane, London, 
chemicals used in pharmacy and photography, aniline 
dyes, &c. W. Nichols and Co., England, third annatto. 
Maltine Manufacturing Company, 92 and 93 Great Russell- 
street, and Bloomsbury-mansions, Hart-street, Bloomsbury, 
London, W.C., maltine food and pharmaceutical preparations. 
John Richardson and Co., 10 Friar-lane, Leicester, pure 
chemicals ; pharmaceutical preparations ; cod liver oil emul- 
sions ; colonists medicine chests ; pocket pharmacies, &c. Price’s 
Patent Candle Company, Limited, Belmont Works, Battersea, 
London, stearine, composite, and paraffine candles ; night 
lights, glycerine, toilet soaps, household soap, soap mixture, 
machinery oils. Wheeler and Co., Southend-on-Sea, and 40 
Aldersgate-street, London, Wenham’s lime-juice saline, and 
“chalybeate.” Thomas Whiffen, Lombard-road, Battersea, 
London, pharmaceutical preparations ; quinine sulphate and 
other quinine salts ; bark. JRigollot and Co., 49 Southwark- 
street, London, mustard leaves. T. and H. Smith and Co., 31 
Duke-street, Edinburgh, and 12 Worship-street, London, salts 
of morphia ; strychnine, and its salts. Southall Brothers, and 
Barclay, Birmingham, cod liver oil ; drugs and powdered 
drugs ; surgical dressings ; the “ aquarium” sea salt. 
PREPARATION OF OLIVE OIL. 
M. Planchon has made sundry practical experiments on the 
yield of olive oil. There is an old custom, followed in all 
olive-producing countries, of placing the olives in heaps 
directly after gathering, to induce fermentation. This method 
is adopted in Spain, Greece, Syria, and in Provence ; indeed, 
it is universal. 
The question comes — Is this an ancient prejudice or an 
empirical rule-of-thumb proceeding ; or is it really a method 
based upon judicious observation of results? We should at 
once have been inclined to vote for the wisdom of the old 
practice, for we believe in traditional experience, though a 
later and more exact chemistry has not guided its handiwork. 
Whether right or wrong, the fixed theory has been held that 
olives which have undergone a sort of fermentation give a 
better yield of oil. 
M. Planchon endeavoured to clear up the matter, and to 
discover whether the increased yield was due to mechanical 
disintregation, which would afford facility of escape to the 
fluid, or whether some more potent chemical agency might not 
be in question. All fermentation depends upon some living 
being which decomposes and transforms the substances with 
which it comes in contact ; thus some transforms sugar into 
alcohol, which in turn is seized up by the mycoderma aceti to 
be changed into vinegar. May not an analogous action be set 
up in the partial fermentation of the olive ? 
In order to arrive at a conclusion, M. Planchon collected 
some olives by his own hand, from the same tree and at the 
same hour. 
These were divided into four lots. The first, reduced to a 
pulp, dried over the water-bath, and thoroughly washed with 
sulphuret of carbon. The second was wrapped in paper, 
separated from each other, and so left without any fear 
of fermentation. The third and fourth lots were bottled 
and heated in a stove from 20 deg. to 25 deg. Those 
exposed to the air never showed a trace of vegetation. 
After 8, 15, 30, and 40 days the proportion of obtainable 
oil remained always constant. The bottled olives speedily 
became covered with green mould, which under the micro- 
scope had a close resemblance to a penicillium. In about 
15 or 30 days they exhaled an excellent odour of olive 
oil, and invariably gave 3 or 4 per cent, more oil than the 
preceding. But the same olives kept in bottle for two months 
and a half lost from 5 to 6 per cent of their original oil. The 
odour was disagreeable, and the vegetation on the surface 
yellow. 
Should this augmentation of oil be attributed to the develop- 
ment of vegetable growth, or to the germs of a ferment which 
many think pre-exist in all fruits ? In all the experiments of 
the author he had never observed any augmentation apart 
from fermentation ; and, when the olives were as usual 
exposed to stove-heat, previously having been dusted over 
with borate of soda to prevent the development of the my co- 
derm, the proportion of oil neither diminished nor increased. 
No advantage was found to be gained from operating on 
perfectly ripe olives ; they gave no better yield than that 
obtained from immature fruits. 
From all this, M. Planchon was inclined to believe that the 
heaping of the olives together after gathering, in order to 
induce fermentation, and thereby to promote the yield of oil, 
was not a vulgar prejudice. Secondly, that this fermentation 
