14 
Mr Young on the Preparation of Pappy Oil. 
to prevail in these parts; and that from their profusion, they 
are, at the same time, the occasion of that great diminution 
of transparency which always accompanies the olive-green 
colour. For in the blue water, where few of the little medusae 
exist, the sea is uncommonly transparent. Captain Wood, 
when attempting the discovery of a north-east passage, in the 
year 1676, sounded near Nova Zembla in 80 fathoms water, 
where the bottom was not only to be seen, but even the shells 
lying on the ground were clearly visible. 
Never having been in a very high latitude during any part of 
the year when the sun sets, I have never observed whether the 
Greenland Sea possesses the property of shining in the dark. 
There is, however, great reason to believe, that as the luminous- 
ness of the sea is often derived from small animals of the medu- 
sa kind, that the green-coloured water found in the Greenland 
Sea would be strongly phosphorescent. 
Aet. IV . — On Poppy Oil. By John Young, Fellow of the 
Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. 
The cultivation of the poppy to a great extent, for the bene- 
fit of its oil, as an article of fc 3d, and for other useful purposes, 
has long been carried on in France, Brabant and Germany, and 
more recently in Holland. 
Although it was long since known that the seed of the poppy, 
and the oil obtained from it, do not possess narcotic properties, 
and that it was baked into cakes, and used as an article of food 
by the ancients, yet there has been much contention respecting 
the propriety of using it. In France, about the beginning of 
the seventeenth century, the opposition to the general use of 
poppy oil, as an article of food, became so violent, that the 
Lieutenant-General of the Police of Paris ordered the medical 
faculty of that city to make the strictest examination concerning 
this point; and they reported, that as there is nothing nar- 
cotic or prejudicial to health in the oil, the use of it might be 
permitted. But this decision was unsatisfactory ; and popular 
clamours determined the court to pass a decree in the year 1718, 
prohibiting the sale of poppy oil, whether mixed or unmixed. 
