26S 
LIVERPOOL CHEMISTS’ ASSOCIATION. 
during the present one. Mr. Henry Jackson was duly elected a member of the Asso¬ 
ciation. Dr. Nevius presented his ‘ Analysis of the Pharmacopoeia,’ third edition, to the 
Library, for which the President accorded to him the thanks of the meeting. Dr. 
Nevins exhibited some of the pastiles used for producing the “ Pharaoh’s Serpents,” and 
stated the material to be sulphocyanide of mercury. After illustrating the production 
of the “serpent,” he explained the decomposition which took place, and the conditions 
which tended to cause the resulting substance to assume the serpent form, viz. that the 
sulphur and mercury of the sulphocyanide were volatilized in an oxidized state, and that 
the cyanogen was broken up into mellon and carbon, which constituted the body of the 
“serpent,” Thus, assuming that 13 equivalents of the sulphocyanide of mercury 
entered into the decomposition, and that the mercury and sulphur were volatilized as 
sulphurous acid and mercurial vapours, the 13 equivalents of cyanogen were transformed 
as follows:— 
13Cy = C 2fi N 13 = C 18 N ]3 + 8C. # # . 
The outer yellow coat of the “ serpent ” was supposed to be sulphide of tin or stannic 
acid produced from the tinfoil coating. 
The President then proceeded to deliver his opening address as follows:—Gentle¬ 
men,—The seventeenth session of the Liverpool Chemists’ Association is not to be inau¬ 
gurated by the maiden address of a new President. By the vote of your council to which 
you did- me the honour to re-elect me at your last annual meeting, I am again placed in 
the presidential chair. This distinction I would gladly have foregone in favour of our 
esteemed Vice-President, who is a far more worthy claimant. Indeed I should have de¬ 
clined the office were it not that I hesitated to appear unwilling to serve you as long 
as precedent seems of late to have assigned as the customary limits. In acceding to 
the very kind and flattering wish of your council, in disregard of the good excuses 
which want of health, time, and ability, afford, I am conscious of doing both you and 
your council an injustice. I ought to have been firm; but must now, in consequence 
of yielding, throw myself on your kind consideration and forbearance. Experience, 
which often adjusts the most formidable tasks to the feeblest agents, has done little to 
relieve your President. He still feels how inadequate he is to the duties involved in his 
office ; and how impossible it is for him to realize an ideal every day becoming higher 
and more noble as examples multiply. More wisdom and force of character are requisite 
in the deliberation of your council than I can boast, and the interests of the Association 
generally demand more activity and attention for their advancement than I can com¬ 
mand opportunity to bestow. So that I believe you are guilty of the very common 
mistake of placing one for your guide who would do better in the ranks—possibly might 
shine as a private, but must be conspicuously obscure as general. 
But if your President thinks his own relationship to your Association might with 
great advantage have been changed, yet he rejoices to congratulate you that all his 
brother officers have been re-elected to serve you for another year. 
A perpetually recurring novitiate, I am persuaded, in the important posts of Hon. 
Treasurer and Secretary cannot but be prejudicial to the advancement of our Association. 
Por it appears to me that the value of these gentlemen to us, unlike that of a President, 
is in the inverse ratio of their freshness. Our tried, right trusty, and well-beloved Trea¬ 
surer, who manages our purse so well, is likely to grow hoary in harness with honours 
thick clustering upon his brow. Nor less likely is our Hon. Secretary to secure, in 
double ratio, the well-merited praise of his last year’s labours. His experience, aiding his 
natural sagacity, will powerfully augment the practical value of his services through the 
coming session. In providing for our evening meetings, he will not now feel as one who 
tries an unknowm stream for'the first time; he will be able to cast his line where the 
prey is certain to be taken, and thus his own labour will be play and your advantage the 
more marked. 
I think that we may congratulate ourselves in looking back over the past session, to 
see that we have to a very great extent been independent of external aid. 
What we have accomplished has been mainly done by our own members; and hence 
we may infer that our strength for future efforts remains unimpaired. Nay, let me say- 
increased, for pre-eminently is it true in scientific matters, that “ to him that hath it 
shall be given.” To use is to have. To lay out for others is really to increase our own 
power to give. We can scarcely be said really to possess knowledge unless able to im¬ 
part it. Or, as it has been said, “ the intellect is perfected not by knowledge but by 
