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ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. 
dent of this city, — a young gentleman ardently devoted to 
scientific pursuits, — has communicated the above valuable 
information, v^hich must be of exceeding interest to our 
cotton planters of the South. 
Usually, the seed is employed only for feeding cattle, 
which, before the extraction of the oil, they will not eat, but 
the cake, after expression, they are very fond of. Hence 
the oil is lost, although considerable expense has been incurred 
in the attempt to make it serviceable, as a substitute for fish oil, 
in illumination. This object can be efiected on a large plan- 
tation, where there are slaves, by the construction of a very 
simple apparatus, in connection with a still for furnishing 
alcohol at a comparatively trifling cost. 
A. D. 
ART. L.— SOME REMARKS ON THE OIL OF WILD CHERRY 
BARK. — By William Procter, Jr. 
The science of vegetable chemistry has been making rapid 
advances within the present century, and though yet in its 
infancy, we have every reason to believe that, at no distant 
period, it will be reduced to fixed laws of action, as in the 
more perfect divisions, styled inorganic chemistry. 
The recent discovery of Liebig and Wohler, of the con- 
stitution of the oil of bitter almonds, and its relation to benzoic 
acid, proving the existence of a compound radical capable of 
union in atomic proportions with the simple non-metallic 
bodies, and of being transferred from one to the other, is a 
brilliant example of this gradual advancement. 
The analogy which exists between the sensible properties 
of the oil of cherry bark, and those of the oil of bitter almonds, 
(see Jour. Phila. Col. Pharm., vol. vi.,) led me to suspect 
a similarity of constitution, and it was upon this conviction 
that the succeeding experiments were undertaken. How far 
