THE  PARIS  EXPOSITION.  109 
consisted  of  gold,  silver,  platinum,  iridium,  rhodium,  palladium,  lead,  bis- 
muth, copper,  cadmium,  cobalt,  nickel,  iron,  antimony,  zinc,  magnesium, 
aluminium,  thallium,  sodium,  potassium  and  mercury. 
The  sodium  amalgam  of  Mr.  Orookes,  now  so  advantageously  used  in 
extracting  gold  from  its  gangue,  and  the  discovery  of  which  is  disputed 
by  a  gentleman  of  New  York,  was  shown.  In  contemplating  this 
noble  collection  we  were  forcibly  impressed  with  the  wonderful  progress 
made  in  the  working  of  platinum  since  the  days  when  the  world  depended 
on  the  then  secret  process  of  Wollaston.  Among  a  few  fine  specimens 
of  silver  and  gold  salts  shown  by  this  house,  was  a  sample  of  pure 
hydrate  of  soda  made  by  the  combustion  of  sodium,  which  these  gentle- 
men aver  is  cheaper  than  when  made  of  equal  purity  by  the  ordinary 
processes. 
Another  interesting  collection  was  that  of  Howard  &  Sons,  London, 
which  embraced  more  than  150  samples  of  cinchona  barks  of  all  grades, 
including  a  series,  in  tall  glass  bottles,  of  barks  from  the  Cinchona  plan- 
tations, of  India,  with  the  results  of  their  analysis,  each  bark  being  accom- 
panied by  its  alkaloid.  Mr.  John  Eliot  Howard,  one  of  the  firm  and 
author  of  a  work  on  Quinology,  and  widely  known  as  a  promoter  of  all 
that  relates  to  the  Cinchona  culture,  has  made  annual  reports  to- the 
government  on  the  alkaloidal  value  of  the  India  bark.  Owing  to  the  bad 
arrangement  of  many  specimens  in  this  collection  as  to  position  and  dis- 
tance from  the  observer,  many  were  disappointed  in  learning  its  true  inter- 
est. Besides  their  bark  products,  which  included  quinia,  quinidia,  cin- 
chonia,  cinchonidia  and  aricina,  with  many  of  their  salts,  such  as  the 
double  gold  and  platinum  salts,  this  firm  exhibited  tartaric  and  citric 
acid  in  fine  crystals  and  purity.  Benzoic  acid  from  benzoin,  Rochelle  salt, 
bromine  and  iodine  salts,  a  sample  of  ammoniacal  salts  of  volcanic  origin 
from  Italy,  and  a  few  opium  products.  The  peculiar  character  and  great 
representative  value  of  this  collection  obtained  for  it  a  gold  medal. 
We  were  much  interested  in  the  case  of  T.  &  H,  Smith,  Pharmaceu- 
tists, of  Edinburg.  Being  one  of  the  central  range  of  cases,  its  contents 
were  seen  to  better  advantage.  The  item  first  in  interest  was  the  new 
alkaloid  cryptopia,  of  which  they  exhibited  a  fine  crystallization  in 
minute  acicular  prisms  studding  a  dish,  the  product  of  a  vast  quantity  of 
opium,  residues  in  which  it  exists  in  very  small  proportion,  (see  vol.  39, 
page  421  of  this  Journal).  This  firm  have  a  habit  of  bringing  out 
chemical  novelties  on  the  .occasion  of  international  exhibitions.  In 
1851  aloiu  was  their  novelty  ;  in  1865,  at  Dublin,  thebolactic  acid  was 
exhibited,  and  in  1867,  cryptopia.  Thebolactic  acid  in  a  free  state,  as 
now  presented,  (1867)  is  a  light  brownish-colored  liquid,  probably  not 
chemically  pure.  Very  creditable  specimens  of  muriate  of  papaverina, 
meconin,  codeia  and  nitrate  of  furfurin  an  (alkaloid  discovered  by  Prof. 
Fownes,  a  derivative  of  furfurole,  obtained  from  bran  by  the  action  of 
sulphuric  acid,  originally  obtained  by  Mr.  Morson)  and  of  caifein,  can- 
