MISCELLANEA. 
305 
reason for the decree. It threatens offenders with merited punishment, but attaches no 
specific penalty to disobedience; and it is thought that this decree will have no more 
effect than that of 1865 to the same purport, and that it will most likely be chiefly 
used by officials as an occasion for extorting money from the pockets of producers. 
There is evidence of extensive poppy cultivation in several parts of China. It has spread 
rapidly within the last few years in the vast region of Eastern Mongolia and Northern 
Manchuria, and is thence brought down to the coast, competing with Indian opium in 
the Newchwang market. Opium is grown also in several southern provinces. It has 
been grown for years in the extreme south-west, in the province of Yunnan, the larger 
proportion of which has thrown off its allegiance, and is now practically an independent 
kingdom, governed by a Mahomedan, named Tu-Wen-hsin, said to be styled by his 
subjects the “Hsi-Mi-Kuo-Wang,’’ or “King of the Consolidated West,” and who has 
established his court at Taili-fu, not far from the frontier of Burmah, called by the 
Chinese “Mien-tien.” Mr. Mongan, the British Consul at Tien-tsin, states that opium 
is brought into that port either crude or prepared. In the former state it is generally 
spoken of as “tu,” earth, or clay, from its resemblance to lumps or cakes of common 
clay; and the native, as distinguished from the foreign, which is termed “ yang-tu ” or 
foreign earth, is called “ hsi-tu ” or western earth, a name which seems to have a geo¬ 
graphical reference to producing provinces. Prepared opium, called “ ya-pieu-kao,” is 
at Tien-tsin generally composed of foreign and native drug boiled down, and often 
largely adulterated with glutinous substances, such as a decoction of the berries of a 
leguminous tree called the “ huai-shu,” which grows abundantly in that part of the 
country. In quality some of the Chinese opium is not much below Malwa ; but it is 
inferior in strength and flavour, and smokers prefer the Indian drug, although its price 
may be double that of the native; and in fact the latter is chiefly used for mixing with 
the* former, seven-tenths foreign to three-tenths native.— Times. 
Test for Detecting very Minute Quantities of Iodine. —Take water 100 
grms., starch 1 grin., nitrite of potassa, 1 grin.; boil this mixture during five minutes, 
and after cooling, pour it into a bottle. When required for use take 10 c.c., add one 
single drop of hydrochloric acid. Take as much as a pin’s head in size of the dry salt 
to be tested for iodine, place it in a clean porcelain capsule, and add one drop of the 
test-fluid last mentioned. The least trace of iodine gives rise to the formation of a 
well-defined blue colour. The liquid test-fluid, after addition of HC1, keeps quite well 
in a properly stoppered bottle.— M. Alfraise, Chemical News. 
Bites of Insects. —It would be well if we could follow some of our tormentors of 
the insect world through their daily life and discover their loves and their hates. 
Linnaeus informs us that the seeds of the Absinthium maritimum are deadly to the flea, 
and we have likewise heard that the odour of the elder is equally obnoxious to other 
insects. It is said by the devotees of botany, that on a hot summer’s day the cattle 
may be seen to cluster round the elder for protection against the sting of flies; we have 
thought sometimes in our summer rambles that the verdict of the wise was unproven. 
We entertain, however, a strong belief that the perfume of the chamomile is destructive 
of the Acarus scabiei, and we use it accordingly in our pomades for the treatment of 
scabies. Bazin was wont to recommend for the same purpose an Unguentum anthemidis; 
and our Italian contemporary, the ‘Giornale Italiano delle Malattie della Belle,’ reminds 
us that an infusion of chamomile flowers has been recommended as a wash to the skin, 
for the purpose of protection against gnats. Gnats are said to shun the traitorous per¬ 
fume ; and if such be the case, it would be easy to convert the essential oil of the 
anthemis into an agreeable lotion like that of lavender-water or eau de Cologne.— 
Journal of Cutaneous Medicine and Diseases of the Skin. 
A New Vine Disease. —The vine-growers in France are in a state of great con¬ 
sternation at present in consequence of the attacks made on the roots of the vine by a 
parasitic insect, the Phylloxera vastatrix, the ravages of which are said to exceed in ex¬ 
tent those of the celebrated o'idium. All means of destroying it have hitherto proved 
fruitless; its ravages, on the contrary, are on the increase, so that quite a panic prevails 
among growers in districts beyond those at present infested. M. Naudin, in a recent 
communication to the Academy of Sciences, points out that the vine is cultivated in an 
unnatural forced condition, and becomes predisposed to, and unable to resist, morbid in¬ 
fluences. Although this may be necessary for its productive cultivation, he believes 
