July 13,1872.] 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
ai 
CINCHONA CULTIVATION IN JAVA. 
Professor J. Leon Soubeiran, of Paris has 
kindly placed at our disposal an extract from a letter 
that he has received upon the above subject from 
M. Van. Gorkom, of which the following is a trans¬ 
lation :— 
“ Our cultivation of Cinchona prospers 'wonderfully 
and our medical men employ with advantage the barks 
and their extracts, but principally the ‘ quinium.’ 
Thanks to the recent nomination of a chemist, M. 
Moens, as director of the manufactory which I have 
established in the midst of our plantations, we have the 
hope of soon being able to obtain directly the alkaloids 
necessary for use in our hospitals. 
“ Last May, there was a public sale at Amsterdam of 
6000 kilogs. of our barks, at an average price of from 
two to three florins. The remarkable state of preserva¬ 
tion of these barks, of which the odour and colour were 
very fine, was established. The annual expense of the 
cultivation is at present balanced by the production, 
and before 1876 all the cost of introduction will be 
covered. The individual plantations continue to multiply 
and very soon the barks of Java will seriously compete 
with the American barks in the European markets.” 
PERSIAN OPIUM. 
According to information on the opium trade, 
collected by Colonel Pelly and furnished by that 
officer to Mr. Dickson, Her Majesty’s Secretary of 
Legation at Teheran, Persian opium gives from two 
to eight per cent, of morphia. It is principally 
cultivated in Yezd and Ispahan, and partly in some 
of the Kliorassan districts. The Yedz opium is 
considered the best. The crop of 1871 was com¬ 
puted at 1200 chests only, owing to the drought, but 
a good year’s crop may produce 2500 chests. About 
200 to 300 chests are said to be annually exported 
to London, 200 chests to Singapore, 200 to Java, and 
the remainder to China. 
We have received an intimation ’that Mr. E. 
Alfred Webb, grandson of the late Mr. John 
Evans, has been admitted into the firm of Evans, 
Lescher and Evans. Mr. Webb studied at the 
School of Pharmacy, and was a prizeman in 1871. 
The first number of a new periodical, and which 
it is proposed to make a monthly record of cryp- 
togamic botany and its literature, has been received. 
It is under the able editorship of Mr. M. C. Cooke, 
and is called by the appropriate name of “ Grevillea.” 
It contains sixteen pages of text, and an excellent 
coloured plate, the drawing being executed by the 
Editor, and it is published at a price that is perhaps 
unprecedently low. 
The Juries Bill, as amended by the Select Com¬ 
mittee to whom it was referred, has been reprinted. 
It is satisfactory to find that the exertions of the 
Council of the Pharmaceutical Society have so far 
been successful, and that registered chemists and 
druggists are still included amongst the exemptions. 
NORWICH CHEMISTS’ ASSISTANTS’ 
ASSOCIATION. 
On Thursday, July 4th, the members who had regu¬ 
larly attended the lectures delivered at the rooms of the 
above Association, were kindly invited by Mr. Thomp¬ 
son to go for an excursion into the country. Accord¬ 
ingly about eleven started at 6 p.m. in a waggonette for 
Mulbarton Common, accompanied by Mr. O. Corder, 
who had kindly undertaken to assist them in examining 
any plants they might find. On their arrival, the party 
divided, to ramble through the fields for about two hours 
to search for specimens, and then returned to the inn, 
where Mr. Thompson had most liberally provided a sub¬ 
stantial meat tea. 
After thoroughly enjoying the delicacies displayed,they 
spent the remainder of the evening in playing various 
games, and strolling about the beautiful garden attached 
to the inn. At 10 p.m. the members reassembled, and 
after cordially thanking Mr. Thompson for his great 
kindness, proceeded home, having spent a most enjoyable 
evening. 
Mr. Thompson, in his invitation, stipidated that only 
those who had attended regularly at the lectures should 
be present on the occasion, as he wished particularly to- 
encourage uniform attendance on the part of the students 
Ipwmimtp irf Jkmrtifir tomtits. 
CHEMICAL SOCIETY. 
Thursday, June 20th. 
Deacon’s Method of Obtaining Chlorine as 
Illustrating some Principles of Chemical Dy¬ 
namics. 
BY H. DEACON. 
The Lecturer said that about two years ago, at Liver¬ 
pool, he had given an account of his process for the 
preparation of chlorine from a heated current of hydro¬ 
chloric acid mixed with air, which since then had been, 
the subject of a great amount of research, with the 
object of ascertaining how this could be effected con¬ 
tinuously, readily and at the smallest cost. This pro¬ 
blem may be resolved into the following:— 
1. As to the most suitable active or catalytic sub¬ 
stance. 
2. Whether the mass or the surface of the substance 
was the active agent. 
3. As to the effect of temperature. 
4. As to the best arrangement of the substance. 
5. As to the effects produced by variation in the 
velocity of the current of gas. 
6 . As to the effect of various proportions of air or 
oxygen and HC1. 
He had" observed that the heated mixture of hydro¬ 
chloric acid and oxygen or air does not yield chlorine, 
unless it is in the presence of some substance capable 
of being attacked by the hydrochloric acid, amongst 
which the copper compounds were eminently active. 
Sulphate of copper was fixed upon for economic rea¬ 
sons ; and almost all the experiments mentioned in his- 
lecture had been made either with the pure sulphate or 
with pumice-stone or fragments of clay saturated with 
it. In experimenting, two clay tubes were generally 
employed, of different bores, glazed externally, anti 
coated internally with sulphate of copper, placed side 
by side, [and passing through the cork of a glass tube 
sealed at the other end. The mixed gases, on entering,, 
first traversed the glass tube, and then passed out by 
the clay tubes. In the more recent experiments this 
apparatus was placed in a thick massive iron tube,, 
