446 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. [December 2,1871. 
having with them ane apothiquer of the towne of 
their residence, to view, try and examine the sufficiency 
of all medicaments, drogues, compositiones, waters, 
oiles and chymicall preparations, and to report to the 
said societies, to the end that whatsoever sail he found 
by them to be either adulterate or corrupt and carious, 
may be by them ordeaned to be destroyed and cassed, 
without any hinderance to be made for that effect be 
any apothiquer, drogist or sellers of insufficient droges. 
“Article 6th.—That power be granted to the said 
colledge, with the concurrence of two apothiquers whom 
the said colledge sail please to nominate, to tax and ap- 
pretiate yearly all drogs, medicaments and compositiones, 
waters, oiles, and all which be in use to be employed; 
and that it be ordered that publick records of the several! 
taxes and appretiationes be made, whereof ane copie sail 
remaine in the custodie of the said colledge, and every 
apothiquer sail have ane publickly extant in his buith, 
that the buyers may have knowledge and insight of the 
prices, and to fine the excuders of the said taxes pro- 
portionallie to the quality thereof. 
“Article 7th.—That prohibition and defense be made 
to all the apothiquers and droguists, and to all others 
within the kingdom, to sell any drogues of dangerous 
quality,—as antimony, opium, scammony, arsenic, mer¬ 
cury, sublimat, hellebore, elaterium, or any narcotic, 
cathartick, or purging medicaments,—to any whatso¬ 
ever, except alternately either to the apothiquhers or to 
the physician of the forsaid incorporation, or licentiats 
from the said colledge, or to such others as has their 
warrant and ordinance for the same, with power to the 
said colledge to fine the delinquents.” 
Then it goes on to say that these articles are to be 
“ oppenly proclaimed at the mercate crosses within this 
realme, and be printed by the king’s majesties printer, to 
the effect that none pretend ignorance.” 
{To be continued.) 
PRESENCE OF MILK-SUGAR IN A VEGETABLE 
JUICE. 
BY G. BOUCHARD AT.* 
By extracting sugar obtained from the juice of the 
sapodilla (Achras sapola ) with boiling alcohol, a crystal¬ 
line substance is obtained, which, after being twice re¬ 
crystallized from water, possesses all the properties of 
milk-sugar. It is hard, crunches between the teeth, is 
slightly sweet, melts at 204°, and gives off gas if this 
temperature be maintained for some time; it is soluble 
at the ordinary temperature to the extent of about 14 
parts to 100 parts of water, and its solution rotates po¬ 
larized light to the same degree as milk-sugar; heated 
with potash it turns brown ; it reduces potassio-tartrate 
of copper, but does not undergo alcoholic fermentation 
by contact with beer-yeast under ordinary circumstances; 
it is precipitated by ammoniacal acetate of lead, and 
wffien treated with five times its volume of dilute nitric 
acid produces a certain quantity of mucic acid. 
The mother-liquor from which the above substance is 
obtained yields crystals possessing all the physical and 
chemical properties of cane-sugar. 
The relative proportions of cane-sugar and milk-sugar 
in the substance employed are as 55 to 45. 
The author also states that on treating the extract 
juice of ripe sapodilla fruit with acetate of lead, preci¬ 
pitating the saccharine matters with ammoniacal acetate 
of lead, and decomposing the precipitate with sul¬ 
phuretted hydrogen, the filtered liquor concentrated to 
a syrup, purified by solution in alcohol, and subsequently 
treated with dilute nitric acid, readily yields crystals of 
mucic acid. 
* Compt. Rend., lxxii. 462-464, from the Journal of the 
Chemical Society. 
THE YELLOWSTONE VALLEY. 
Professor Hayden, wffio has been engaged for four 
years on a geological survey of the United States’ ten-i- 
tories, has returned to AVashington, and will proceed to 
prepare his annual report, which will include the survey 
of the famous Yellowstone A r alley. The expedition to 
that valley left Utah in June, and explored the belt of 
country to Fort Ellis, Montana, pi’oceeding then into 
the A T alley of the Yellowstone. Professor Henry, Secre¬ 
tary of the Smithsonian Institution, has received a letter 
from Mr. Elliott, the ai'tist who accompanied the expe¬ 
dition, giving an account of the “Great Canon,” a huge 
basaltic fissure or rent in the earth, beginning at Tower 
Creek and ending at the foot of the Lower Falls of the 
Yellowstone. Hence, it is 25 or 30 miles long. The 
canon varies from 1000 to 2000 feet in depth, and along 
its bottom the river whirls with immense velocity, ap¬ 
pearing from above “now a blue and now T a snowy 
riband.” The attrition of the stream for ages has worn 
the sides of the chasm into strange shapes of “ towers, 
points, and pinnacles,” and these are “ gaily painted by 
the waters of the numberless warm and hot springs 
which ooze out from the fissures into a variety of tints 
and tones, dazzling white, intense red, purple, saffron, 
yellow, etc., and fairly bewildering the eye, at fii'st, by 
their singulai’ity and grandeur.” The canon is, more¬ 
over, fringed in some places with rows of basaltic pillars, 
quite regular in form, from 20 feet to 30 feet high, and 
standing, without crack or flaw, in regular tiers one 
above the other. The great Falls are more imposing 
still. They are a “broad, evenly deep sheet of clear ice 
water, leaping down at one bound 450 feet.” Unbroken 
by any point or division, they rush over the ledge, a 
vast curtain, as of swift, foaming lace. These are the 
Lower Falls, the Upper being just the height of Niagara, 
or 150 feet, and but half a mile distant from the other. 
Thus, within that short space, the stream makes a 
descent of 600 feet. But the chief marvel of this section 
would seem to be the “ Geysers of the Firehole Basin.” 
These are at the headwaters of the Madison, and in mag¬ 
nitude and extent of area induce the famous boiling 
springs of Iceland to complete insignificance. Mr. 
Elliott writes:—“I have stood by a crater, and have 
seen a column of hot (boiling) water six feet in diameter 
ascend with a single bound, vertically, to a height of 
1200 feet; pause there for an instant, and fall to its sili- 
cified basin in a thousand water streams and a million 
prismatic drops. This continued for ten or fifteen minutes; 
then all would be quiet; the water of the cistern became 
as still as that of a mill-pond, and apparently as inactive. 
This geyser, which is one of many, we named the 
Grand. It plays at irregular intervals of twenty-four 
to thirty hours for ten to twenty minutes. Another* 
named by Doane ‘ Old Faithful,’ plays at intervals of 
only an hour apart, throwing up an immense steady 
column to an elevation of 150 feet.” There are fifty 
geysers and over a thousand boiling springs, according 
to this authority, within 50 miles of each other ; and it 
is evident that these objects must rank among the 
wonders of nature.— Times. 
CARBOLIC ACID PILLS. 
The following formula for carbolic acid pills is taken 
from the Journal de T/uirmacie ct de Chimie :— 
Carbolic Acid.3 drops. 
Soap Powder.0-60 gram. 
Lycopodium.0-06 „ 
Powder of Gum Tragacanth . q. s. 
For six pills. The first two ingredients make a semi¬ 
fluid mass that the lycopodium does not absorb, but which 
acquires firmness upon the addition of the gum traga¬ 
canth. 
