233 
ADULTERATION OE POWDERED GUM ARABIC. 
Sir,—It ake tlie liberty of sending you a sample of adulterated Pulvis G. 
Acacise, price 2s. per pound. Rubbed up with cold water, it forms a muddy 
mucilage, very unlike that made with pure gum. The microscope shows the 
presence of rice-starch , sago-meal , and flour. To estimate their amount, 100 
grains of the powder were stirred in a beaker with a few pints of cold water, 
until the gum was dissolved, and after standing undisturbed for a day, the 
clear solution was drawn off. The starch was again washed, then collected and 
dried at a gentle heat. It weighed 10 grains. The practice of adulteration 
can only be put down by so increasing the risk of detection as to make it a 
losing game; and every man can do something towards that end by making 
known the devices he may discover for palming upon him adulterated for genuine 
articles, and thereby putting others on their guard. 
Sheffield , October 20, 1863. J. T. MlLLER. 
WOOD NAPHTHA. 
[The following statement, by Mr. Phillips, Chemist to the Board of Inland Revenue, 
is contained in the Report of the Board presented to Parliament, and recently published.] 
When the Legislature decided to permit the use of duty-free methylated spirits in the 
arts and manufactures of this country, it was most probably understood that the con¬ 
tinuance of such permission would be contingent on the safety of the revenue derived 
from spirits. Notwithstanding the great and undeniable benefit which has resulted from 
this legislative action, efforts, no doubt incited mainly by the high rate of duty on spirits, 
to obtain a potable spirit from methylated alcohol continue to be made; and since my 
last report was written, a patent has been granted for a process which professes not only 
to accomplish this object, but to render wood spirit itself potable, and this too at a cost 
which is almost nominal. 
Previous to the issuing of this patent, the statements made that methylated spirit 
could for commercial purposes be rendered potable were vague and intangible, and con¬ 
sequently most difficult to controvert; but now that a detailed process for the defecation 
of such spirit has been propounded, there is at last something definite which may be in¬ 
vestigated and criticized. 
Having already specially reported to the Board on the capabilities of the patented 
process in question, it may be sufficient here to state that I have made a series of ex¬ 
periments, in strict accordance with the conditions specified in the patent, and also with 
those laid dowm in an almost identical patent granted to Blumberg in 1845, and that by 
neither of the processes could I succeed in rendering either methylated or wood spirit 
potable, and, to render such spirits after having been submitted to these processes as pala¬ 
table as those which were exhibited during the past year as having been obtained by the 
first-named process, it was found necessary to submit them to numerous successive distil¬ 
lations, which from their costliness could not be applied profitably on a commercial scale, 
and even then the products possessed, as did the spirits exhibited, the character of wood 
spirit, although much subdued, and were in my opinion wholly useless for potable pur¬ 
poses. 
The subject under consideration, whilst of much importance to the revenue, is scarcely 
of less importance to pharmacy, and it is not surprising that it has recently afforded 
matter for earnest discussion among some of the leading pharmacologists of the country, 
who, anxious to preserve the integrity of medicinal preparations, have, not unreasonably, 
been alarmed by the pretensions, whether true or false, of a person who not only asserts 
that he can so far defecate wood spirit as to render it almost indistinguishable from 
vinous alcohol, but who has exhibited specimens of such spirit which might be used in¬ 
stead of spirits of wine for pharmaceutical purposes. 
As I have been already charged with speaking too confidently upon this subject, I feel 
that the sequel of this report will lay me still more open to the charge, more especially 
when I express a strong conviction, based upon long experience, that the revenue is 
much less liable to be injured by the abuse of the permission to use duty-free methylated 
