June 28, 1873.] 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
1037 
round these last remnants of the ancient land ; while an 
Atoll marks the spot where a mountain peak of that old 
continent has totally disappeared beneath the ocean. 
In those regions which lie beyond the warmer area of 
the coral, the land may yet have sunk and left no sign ; 
for the reef-builders could not live in the colder waters, 
and there was nothing else to tell the tale. 
The Coral Island in its relations to Man. —Rut the Atoll 
whose formation we have been following is not yet dry 
land. It is still a submerged reef over which the waves 
roll, for. the polypes cannot extend their works into the 
upper air. Further changes therefore still await it. Frag¬ 
ments torn from its outer side by the waves are piled 
upon its surface, and it rises higher and higher from the 
sea ; the decomposing coral covers the reef with a fertile 
soil, to which the wind and the ocean currents may bring 
the. seeds of plants from other lands, and a graceful vege¬ 
tation clothes in time its sea-girt shores. 
And thus the Atoll becomes fitted for the sustenance of 
terrestrial animals and man. Sea-birds in multitudes find 
shelter there, and land-birds from distant shores see in it 
a country where they may dwell; while the drifted trunk 
°f. the. forest tree, to which the lizard and the insect still 
cling, is cast upon its strand to begin the peopling of its 
woods with still other forms of life. 
Some large fruit-eating bats too have discovered it; 
but no other mammal has ever formed part of the abori¬ 
ginal fauna of the Coral Island. 
Its latest occupant is doubtless man ; but whence he 
came, from wbat original stock he migrated, we have no 
positive evidence to determine. 
If we except the Feejee group and some of the other 
high coral-encircled islands which lie at the extreme west 
of the area, and in which the inhabitants are Negrittos, 
characterized by their black skins, frizzled hair, and repul¬ 
sive features, we shall find a great uniformity of type to 
prevail over the rest of the Pacific coral region, a type 
■with lighter skin and straight or wavy hair, and one which 
points towards an affinity with the Malay races of south¬ 
eastern Asia. We are not, however, on this account to 
suppose that the islands were necessarily peopled by direct 
migration from the Asiatic shores. If we suppose that 
the high islands, with their encircling barrier reefs, repre¬ 
sent the last remnant of a submerged continent, it is quite 
possible that these islands may have retained the last 
remnant also of its population. But whether this be so 
or not, it is certain that the Atolls must have been inde¬ 
pendently peopled, either from the surrounding islands or 
from some more distant continent. The Atoll rose from 
the bosom of the ocean destitute of terrestrial life, and 
many a century must have passed before the presence of 
man broke the solitude of its shores. We may well be¬ 
lieve that at last some savages, drifted out of their course 
by adverse winds, had run their canoe upon the strand 
and had taken possession of the land of the polype. The 
fish of the lagoon, the mollusca of the shore, the fruits of 
the wood, afford them their subsistence ; they have disco¬ 
vered that a pit dug a few feet deep into the coral rock 
will reach a reservoir of fresh water accumulated from the 
rains which had percolated through the more superficial 
porous structures; the friction of two pieces of dry timber 
yields them fire ; while their spears, fashioned by a piece 
of sharp stone found entangled in the roots of some drift¬ 
wood, facilitate the acquisition of food, and make the 
struggle for existence more easy. 
And so years pass on, and the descendants of the first 
accidental settlers have peopled the island ; but though 
experience may have taught them many things, though an 
imperfect division of labour may have been adopted and a 
rude state of society established, the aboriginal dwellers 
have rather adapted themselves to the physical conditions 
among which they have been thrown than raised them¬ 
selves above them, and centuries pass away and leave 
them little changed. For, after all, the Coral Island is 
but ilf fitted for human development; without a hill to 
break the uniformity of its surface, withoxxt a stream to 
hollow out a valley, without a single metal, without a 
mineral beyond the unvaried calcareous coral rock, with¬ 
out a mammal other than the bird-like bat, the native, cut 
off from all communication with other lands, •will have 
few ideas ; while his wants, few and easily satisfied by the 
spontaneous produce of the island, will afford little motive 
for exertion, and little stimulus to development; and it is 
later times, and other lands where civilization has already 
spread, where knowledge has already advanced, that must 
carry civilization and knowledge to the Coral Island. 
And so centuries still roll on, until at last from these 
other shores the destined race has landed on the island—a 
race with higher powers, a more cultivated intellect, and 
an increased capacity for improvement—the bearer of a 
new force, of a civilization with all its good, and alas ! 
with all its evils too : but the good is greater than the 
evil, and so the lower yields to the higher phase of intel¬ 
lect ; more perfect social relations are introduced; laws 
are instituted ; the savage rites of a degrading supersti¬ 
tion give place to a more elevated and a purer creed ; no 
longer with that narrow policy which does not look beyond 
the limits of its own strand of coral, a common interest 
has united island to island, and a national life has dawned 
upon the archipelago of the polype ; deficiencies are sup¬ 
plemented by the products of other lands ; the breadfruit, 
and the banana, and the yam are cultivated ; the fruits of 
the woods, and the pearl-shell, and the trepang of the 
lagoons are sought after by the trader; the relations of 
commerce are established, and the Coral Island takes its 
place in the great community of Nations. 
DETECTION OF THE SUBSTITUTION OF CAREOLIO 
ACID FOE CREASOTE.* 
BY JOHN A. CLARK. 
The author refers to the communication from Mr. 
Morson on the substitution of carbolic acid for creasote, 
in which he states that there is no good test for distin¬ 
guishing between the two, but proposes the use of 
glycerine, in which carbolic acid is easily soluble, but 
creasote insoluble. The author thinks that a far better- 
test is the alcoholic solution of perchloride iron (or tr. 
ferri perchlor. B. P.), which, when added to an alcoholic 
solution of creasote, produces a “ dark greenish-blue ’ 
colour, but with an alcoholic solution of carbolic acid only 
a “light brown” colouration. By this test one part of 
creasote in 500 parts carbolic acid can be easily detected. 
The adulteration of creasote by carbolic acid is more 
difficult to detect, but can be ascertained in the following- 
way : Boil a few drops of creasote with nitric acid (about 
2 drs.) until red fumes are no longer evolved; this yields 
a solution which, when neutralized with solution of caustic 
potash, gives no precipitate, the creasote forming oxalic 
acid. Carbolic acid, when treated in the same manner, is 
very violently acted on by nitric acid and forms picric 
acid (trinitro-phenylic acid), which, when neutralized with 
solution of potash, give a “yellow crystalline” precipi¬ 
tate. One part of carbolic acid in fifty parts creasote can 
be readily detected in this way. 
THE BARTON CHEMICAL MANURE WORKS. 
The loss sometimes sustained by large landholders, and 
fanners in consequence of the worthlessness or inferiority of 
some of the so-called artificial manures and cattle-feeding 
materials, that are put into the market, has led the agricul¬ 
turists of North Lincolnshire and Yorkshire to form, a 
limited liability company for the manufacture of artificial 
manures, and ultimately the production of oil cake for their 
own use. Works have been erected at Barton Vv atershle, 
near the haven and within easy access of the Manchester, 
Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway Station.. The pro¬ 
perty of the company is more than four acres in extent 
about one half of which is at present built upon., i lit 
buildings are fitted with the most approved appliances . 
* From the Canadian Pharmaceutical Journal. 
