February 24,1872.] 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
691 
IjnrmMngs ai j&tuntifit Satieties. 
CHEMICAL SOCIETY. 
At the Meeting of this Society, on Thursday, February 
loth, Dr. Frank land, F.R.S., President, in the chair, 
aftei the ordinary business of the Society had been 
transacted, Professor Roscoe, F.R.S., gave an account of 
some of his recent researches on the element tungsten, 
under the title “ On the Study of some Tungsten Com- 
pouids.” The author, after giving a short resume of the 
labours of other chemists on those compounds of tung¬ 
sten which he had been investigating, proceeded to de- 
scribi their properties, and the methods of preparation 
he htd employed to obtain them. As the result of his 
labotrs, he has definitely settled that the metal tungsten 
is a lexad element with the atomic weight 184, and has 
also shown the cause of the error of the French che¬ 
mist, Persoz, who assigned 153 as the atomic weight. A 
collection of very fine specimens of tungsten compounds 
was exhibited by the Professor. 
SOCIETE DE PHARMACIE DE PARIS. 
Ai the Meeting of this Society on Wednesday, Decem¬ 
ber 5th, a letter from M. Lecanu was read, announcing 
that at the unanimous request of the pharmaciens of 
Oloion (Basses-Pyrenees) the municipal council of that 
towi had decided that the Rue do la Bonneterie, in 
which street Labarraque was born, should be called after 
thas distinguished pharmaceutist. 
Ihe Society proceeded to the choice of officers for 
18/2, when M. Grassi was elected Vice-President and 
M. Bourgoin was elected Secretary. 
il. Baudrimont presented a specimen of cinchona bark 
grown in the East Indies and recently met with in com¬ 
merce, from which he had obtained 37^ per cent, of ex- 
trict and 54‘5 grams of alkaloidal sulphate per kilogram 
of bark; of this quantity 10 grams consisted of sulphate 
o:‘ quinine, the remainder being sulphate of quinidine 
and cinchonine. The appearance of this cinchona was 
lery different from that imported from America. 
M. Marais said that he had received from England 
jome specimens of young barks that were very rich in 
ilkaloids, and he thought that the practice in France, of 
preferring thick and aged barks, was wrong. The spe¬ 
cimen exhibited by M. Baudrimont had the characteristics 
of a young bark, to which circumstance might be attri¬ 
buted the favourable results obtained. 
M. Soubeiran alluded to the terrible fire at Chicago, 
and expressed a wish that the efforts now being put 
forth by pharmaceutists in Great Britain to replace the 
losses of the Chicago College of Pharmacy might be 
imitated by the members of that Society. 
M. Guiciiard read a paper on “ Soluble Oxide of 
Iron.” He had found that when perchloride of iron 
was precipitated by caustic soda, in the presence of 
sugar, an, insoluble precipitate is obtained which forms a 
gelatinous mass, if only sufficient soda be added to satu¬ 
rate the ferric chloride; but this precipitate is entirely 
dissolved if an excess of soda be added in the proportion 
of one equivalent for two of sesquioxide of iron existing 
in the mixture. The compound in which the oxide of 
iron is dissolved is not a saccharate of iron, but a combi¬ 
nation of soda, oxide of iron and sugar. He had also 
found that other substances, such as glycerine and man- 
nite, formed similar compounds, in which they took the 
place of the sugar, and that other metals would form 
with these substances and sugar compounds similar to 
those obtained with iron. 
M. Buignet remarked that M. Roussin had noticed 
and studied the gelatinous precipitate which perchloride 
of iron gave with a solution of gum, and asked whether 
gum would not undergo similar reactions with the iron 
salts to those noticed in the various substances mentioned. 
M. Guichard replied that, as gum yielded this gela¬ 
tinous precipitate with the perchloride of iron alone, he 
had not thought it necessary to examine whether it com¬ 
ported itself in the presence of the salts of iron and 
soda in the same manner as sugar and glycerine. 
M. Jeannel observed that the gelatinous precipitate 
produced by perchloride of iron in a solution of gum was 
redissolved by an excess of that salt, and that the same 
thing occurred with albumen. 
SOCIETY OF ARTS. 
The Study of Economic Botany, and its Claims 
Educationally and Commercially Considered.* 
BY JAMES COLLINS, F.B.S. EDIN. 
Curator of the Pharmaceutical Society's Museum. 
The subject of economic botany is one of very great 
importance. Its practical utility, forming as it does no 
mean portion of the very groundwork and foundation of 
commerce and manufactures, and, therefore, of national 
prosperity, apart from the many interesting features 
which appertain to its study, is sufficient excuse for my 
bringing it before your notice this evening. The subject, 
too, is of such large extent, and its different points so- 
varied, each seeming to demand a separate hearing, that 
I feel compelled to throw myself on your kind indulgence- 
—an indulgence which, I am fully aware, you are over- 
ready to show. It is not my intention this evening to 
dilate on the importance of economic botany, which must 
be evident to all present, but rather, taking for granted 
that its importance will be conceded, to dwell on the 
necessity which exists for a more widely disseminated 
knowledge of it. If we look around us, we cannot help 
acknowledging how, for our food, our clothing, our very 
existence, we are dependent on the vegetable kingdom. 
Without it, man could not exist, and before the earth 
was fit for his abode, an All-wise Creator made the 
“earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and 
the tree yielding fruit after his kind ; ” and from the 
period when man received his first lesson in economic 
botany, “ Behold, I have given you every herb bearing- 
seed, which is upon the face of all the earth; and every 
tree in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed, to you 
it shall be meat,”—this dependence has continued. In- 
fact, to attempt to dwell on our dependence on the 
vegetable kingdom would be dealing with the veriest 
truisms, and would be a task even more hopeless than, 
that essayed by the quaint Bernard Palissy, in attempt¬ 
ing to describe our dependence on wood, a task which 
he gave up in despair, saying, “ I have divers times 
thought to set down the arts which shall perish when, 
there shall be no more wood, but when I had written 
down a great number, I did perceive that there could be 
no end to my writing, and having diligently considered, 
it, I found that there was not any which could be fol¬ 
lowed without wood. . . . And truly I could well allege 
to thee a thousand reasons, but it is so cheap a philo¬ 
sophy that the very chamber wenches, if they do but 
think, may see that without wood it is not possible te 
exercise any manner of human art or cunning.” 
The science of botany embraces every fact which has 
reference to plants, cither living or dead. For conveni¬ 
ence of study, it is subdivided into several departments, 
each of which is so large as to require from the student, 
undivided attention and great concentration of energy 
before he can become thoroughly conversant with it. 
We may, for our present purpose, thus classify them. 
First, we have organological, or structural botany, which, 
treats of the internal and external structure of the? 
various parts or organs of a plant, without reference to¬ 
ffs life; second, physiological botany, which treats of 
e life of a plant and the functions of its various organs ; 
ird, systematic botany, which treats of the relations. 
* Read on Wednesday Evening, Feb. 14. 
