NOTE ON SYRUP OP HYPOPHOSPHITE OF IRON. 
46F 
spring lay on the west side of the St. Ann’s River, which was then considered 
as the bouudary of the two estates; but the flood of the succeeding year depo¬ 
sited a mound of gravel and detrital rubbish where the river had previously 
run, and the current, after tearing down its western bank, formed a new 
channel twenty-five or thirty feet west of its former position, leaving the 
mineral spring on the east, or Drax Hall side of the stream. The west bank of 
the river is now perpendicular, and about eight feet high. 
Beneath the detrital gravel and rounded stones, which form the visible bed of 
the river-course, and probably at the depth of but a few feet, lies the white ma¬ 
rine tertiary limestone, which forms the chief characteristic rock of the eutire 
parish. This rock is fissured throughout its whole extent; so much so as to make 
it improbable that its strata should be the channel, for any great length, of an 
underground spring ; the subterranean course of the water would rather be 
found to exist at the junction of the limestone with the underlying tertiary blue 
clayey shale. The latter is certainly impervious to the downward passage of 
water. At what depth this blue shale would be found is not known, but it may 
be seen at a considerably higher level than the spring in the bed of the Negro 
river at a distance of not more than a mile and a half. 
The mineral spring is sixty-eight feet above the sea-level and seventy-six 
chains from it; its temperature 82° F., about that of the air. It flows with 
tolerable regularity, and does not appear to be affected by the tropical rains, 
although the people declare it is stronger in dry weather. Its yield is about 
seventy gallons per hour. The bed of the “ St. Aim’s river-course” is about 
eighty feet across at this place. The works of Windsor Estate are six chains 
off in a small plain, which, with the situation of the Drax Hall cane pieces, 
must once have been the bed of a stream much larger than that which now 
exists in this spot. At a quarter of a mile on each side of the river the hills 
rise in undulating masses of about 300 to 400 feet, but in the direction of the 
head of the stream, at the distance of three miles, they reach the height of 160) 
or 1700 feet, running nearly parallel to the coast line, and forming its water¬ 
shed. 
NOTE ON SYRUP OF HYPOPHOSPHITE OF IRON. 
BY C. H. WOOD, F.C.S. 
Since the introduction of the hypophosphites into medicine by Dr. Churchill a 
few years back, this syrup has been frequently prescribed; and although at the 
present time it is much less used than the syrup of the phosphate of iron, never¬ 
theless the pharmaceutist is every now and then called upon to supply it. The 
only process for its production yet published in this country, that I am aware 
of, occurs among the Notices to Correspondents in the Pharmaceutical Jour¬ 
nal, vol. vii. new series, p. 440. We are there directed to dissolve moist and 
recently-precipitated carbonate of iron in a mixture of hypophosphorous and 
phosphoric acids, and convert the resulting solution into a syrup. No mention 
is made of the strength of the hypophosphorous acid, or how the acid is to be 
obtained. 
A very similar method is given in the American work on ‘ Practical Pharmacy,’ 
by Mr. Parrish. Carbonate of iron is to be precipitated from a given weight of 
sulphate, and dissolved in a stated quantity of hypophosphorous acid, of sp. gr. 
U036 ; then sugar added as usual. It will be seen that for both these processes 
it is necessary, as a starting-point, to have a solution of hypophosphorous acid 
of some defined and uniform strength. In Parrish’s book a formula is given for 
the production of this acid. It is as follows :— 
Take of hypophosphite of lime, 480 grs.; crystallized oxalic acid, 350 grs. 
