March 18,1871.] THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
745 
solution of quinia a darker coloured precipitate, 
changing more readily. 
If an aqueous solution, or the tincture of sesqui- 
cliloride of iron, diluted with water so that the iron 
colour can scarcely be perceived, is mixed with solu¬ 
tion of potassium iodide, an iodine colour is at once 
produced, doubtless owing to the formation of ferric 
iodide: Fe 2 Cl g +3 KI=Fe 2 I,,+3KCl. But since in 
a mixture of solutions of different salts the acid and 
bases interchange in part, provided an insoluble 
compound be not formed, a mixture of the two solu¬ 
tions must contain Fe 2 Cl 3 , Fe 2 I 3 , KI and KC1; the 
third equivalent of iodine in Fe 2 1 3 being but loosely 
combined, we have in the above mixture practically 
KI 2 , and obtain with it in quinia solutions the same 
precipitate which we observe on the addition of 
Lugol’s solution. 
The appearance of the red or brown precipitate 
which, according to Rigliini, contains quinia, liydri- 
odic acid and iodine, depends therefore on the pre¬ 
sence of KI 2 , or if KI be used, on the presence of 
some other compound producing the former. 
The precipitate obtained in putting up the above 
prescription, after having been well washed with 
water, forms a brown powder having a slight odour 
of iodine, which is slowly evolved. When the pre¬ 
cipitate is treated with ammonia, it changes to a dull 
cinnabar colour; dissolved in acids, it jffelds a copi¬ 
ous precipitate with iodohydrargyrate of potassium. 
Heated upon platinum foil, it decomposes, leaving a 
bulky charcoal, which is burned with difficulty with¬ 
out leaving any residue behind. The precipitate 
therefore contains, beside the elements of quinia, 
only iodine .—American Journal of Pharmacy. 
THE BOTANICAL STUDENT’S DREAM. 
“ Riclentem dicere verum 
Quid vetat ?” 
It was the middle of February', and I hoped to pass 
the Minor Examination in May. I had devoted my 
winter evenings to botany, and was endeavouring to 
create out of Bentley and my own inner consciousness a 
correct idea of a plant. It was my off-duty night, and, 
after a good spell of reading, I found that my notions, 
instead of clearing up, became more and more confused 
and complicated. Suddenly it came into my head that I 
was a primordial utricle, and how to get out of my cell, 
notwithstanding its walls were but cellulose, was more 
than I could accomplish. But no, that was not it; a 
painful sensation across the chest made it evident that I 
was a cell myself, and that the hour-glass constrictive, 
preparatory to a division into two cells, was taking 
place. Though painful, this did not otherwise distress 
me, when I heard a rushing noise—(was it a cytoblast F) 
—and, presto ! the perfect image of my thoughts,—my 
ideal plant was full in view before me. Alas ! what a 
Frankenstein had I brought to life, or to death in life! 
No old oak wild and gnarled, worn with the storms of 
five hundred winters, ever looked so weird and ghostly 
to the belated traveller as he passed it in the thickening 
twilight as did my unfortunate creation. Its arms were 
stretched out as if to seize upon its author, but the cell 
division being now completed, I slid easily out of the 
way. . I saw what a frightful abortion I had produced. 
Was it an exogen with the wrong side out, or an endo- 
gen with the wrong side in ? The fibro-vascular bundles 
were rattling loose like old bones, and the bark of the 
trunk, where there was any, was altogether unlike bark. 
Surely the liber must have got outside the epidermis, 
owing to its being made out of a book. The petioles 
were at the wrong ends of the leaves, and the peduncles 
had no work to do. The lacteals were leaky, and my 
nose assured mo they were distilling assafoctida; but if 
so, why were they in the stem ? The conversion of the 
elements of leaves into flowers was going on badly; 
some had got as far as stamens, and were intended to be 
hypogynous when the ovary arrived. The process had 
followed the too frequent example of higher organiza¬ 
tions, and become a case of cryptogamy. There were 
old carpels hanging about, which ought to have dehisced 
long ago,—septicidally probably, suicidally most likely. 
The seeds were all loose, so I supposed the dissepiments 
did not fit, or the placentation was not correct. There 
were spines in abundance,—naturally enough in this case, 
for the development of the leaf-buds had proceeded upon 
false principles. Involucres, bracts, spathes and glumes 
werq stuck about here and there, looking as out of place 
as bills upon a lamp post. 
One thought pleased me at last—the roots were hidden 
out of sight. Consequently, whether they were true 
roots or adventitious I did not care ; whether rachis or 
underground stem, whether bulb, corm or tuber, it 
mattered not; and, as long as my own medulla was safe, 
it was a toss up whether there should be any in the root 
or not. 
To complete my confusion, I now saw approach the 
venerable but slightly aquiline form of the examiner in 
botany, and on his coming the miserable spectre I had 
raised fell to pieces like a disarticulated skeleton. He 
saw my embarrassment, and, picking up one of the frag¬ 
ments, asked mo, in a gentle voice, “What is prosen- 
chyma ?' I hesitated. I, who had been using it—alas ! 
too freely, from a book mind, as I afterwards remem¬ 
bered. I was brimful of hard and uncomfortable words 
as good companions to each other as teasel heads or 
thorn-apples, which nevertheless kept shifting about as 
in a kaleidoscope; but this one ivould not come into the- 
field of view. I answered at a venture, “ ProtoplasmP 
He gave me just one look, stem but full of pity, and 
the expected collapse took place. 
It might have been a few minutes or a few hours 
afterwards that I saw a graceful maiden, with a golden 
glory round her head, walking towards me. “ Youthful 
student,” she said, “I know your troubles, and am come 
to help you. My name is Clytie. The sun whom I fol¬ 
low has risen, and I will take you to the fields where 
grow the anemones and primroses and the yellow daffo¬ 
dils. We will follow his course till night, and before he 
sets, you will learn more of the glories of flower-land 
than books will ever teach you.” So we went forth 
with the sun, and picked the earliest blossoms wet with 
dew. As he got high others unfolded, and the green leaves 
overhead and the grass below, the leafy hedgerows and 
mossy banks, all had something to tell and something that 
could be remembered. And the bees entered the flowers, 
to show us where were the nectaries, and got covered with 
pollen-grains, till they were as dusty as millers. We 
saw, too, the colchicum leaves, like bundles of spear¬ 
heads, in the meadows; and the feathery hemlock, with 
its livid stems, lurking by the hedges ; the viscid hen¬ 
bane on the chalky upland ; the dark green belladonna ; 
the dandelion, despised among herbs yet honoured phar¬ 
maceutically, its seed-heads a botanical study; the tall 
foxglove, with its cups for the fairy folk ; and the male- 
fern, with its crown of unfolding fronds, a model of 
graceful beauty; and the sycamore seeds springing up 
in the shade where grass did not grow, taught the secret 
of cotyledons, and other lessons were quickly learned. 
And the odours were crushed out under-foot,—the 
allium, fine but somewhat high ; the wild thyme, fresh 
and sweet ; whilst the scent of the anthoxanthum, 
sweetest in death, was borne far away down the wind. 
And so, as the sun westered, the world of flowers had 
acquired a new meaning; and my spoils grew heavy, 
and—but the fate that befalls walking philosophers and 
star-gazers in general befell me. Whether it was a 
stump or a bramble I do not know, but my forehead 
came into sharp contact with—the ground, I was about 
