THE  PARIS  EXPOSITION. 
113 
mass  of  crystals  of  piperin  was  particularly  prominent,  and  must  have 
required  great  care  in  transportation.  Capsules  of  various  kinds  and 
other  strictly  pharmaceutical  articles  were  included,  all  arranged  with 
great  neatness  and  effect. 
Davy  Yates  and  Routledge,  London,  exhibited  mercurials  and  other 
chemicals  and  various  samples  of  drugs  and  pharmaceutical  preparations. 
The  British  Seaweed  Co.,  of  Glasgow,  operating  under  the  patent  of 
E.  C.  Stanford,  exhibited  numerous  specimens  of  their  products.  This 
patent  claims  to  obtain  nearly  double  the  amount  of  iodine  salts  from 
seaweed  that  the  old  kelp  process  of  open  combustion  yields.  It  con- 
*  sists  in  gathering  and  compressing  the  seaweed  in  solid  cakes,  which  are 
then  dried,  packed  into  cylinders  and  carbonized,  as  in  making  pyrolig- 
neous  acid  from  wood,  thus  securing  the  volatile  products,  tar  and  acetic 
acid,  and  after  lixiviating  the  charcoal  to  remove  the  saline  matter  it  (the 
charcoal)  is  found  to  possess  great  value  for  its  decolorizing  power.  The 
saline  matter  is  then  obtained  by  evaporation,  and  the  mother  liquor 
containing  the  iodine  salts  is  treated  in  the  usual  way  for  iodine. 
Huskisson  &  Son,  of  London,  had  an  interesting  collection  of  chemi- 
cal products  of  their  manufacture,  remarkable  for  their  variety  and  the 
excellence  of  their  crystallizatipn.  The  iodine  crystals  were  like  bits  of 
polished  steel,  one  or  two  inches  long.  The  iodides  and  bromides  were, 
to  say  the  least,  very  beautiful.  Judging  from  their  collection  a  very 
favorable  estimate  might  have  been  drawn  of  the  character  of  this  firm. 
Hopkins  &  Williams,  of  New  Cavendish  Street,  London,  exhibited 
fine  specimens  of  glacial  phosphoric  acid,  which  looked  like  masses  of 
fractured  rock  crystal,  colorless  and  pure.  Among  the  salts  exhibited  by 
this  firm  were  double  salts  parallel  with  Rochelle  salt,  alum  and  tartar 
emetic,  in  which  oxide  of  thallium  replaced  the  potash  in  thse  salts.  It 
would  be  interesting  to  know  what  elfect  this  substitution  had  on  their 
medicinal  qualities.  It  was  also  in  this  case  that  Mr.  Crookes,  the  first 
discoverer  of  thallium,  deposited  an  ingot  of  that  metal,  and  a  sample  of 
the  crystallized  thallium  protected  from  the  atmosphere  by  glass,  the  air 
being  probably  displaced  by  hydrogen  gas.  Thallium  is  one  of  the  early 
results  of  spectral  analysis,  now  so  prodactive  of  wonderful  probabili- 
ties in  connection  with  astronomy. 
H.  B.  Condy,  of  London,  exhibited  the  permanganate  solution  known  as 
Condy's  disinfectant,  so  largely  used  in  the  hospitals,  and  specimens  of 
other  permanganates.  It  is  said  that  a  bottle  of  solution  of  permanganic 
acid  in  this  collection  in  the  early  period  of  the  exhibition  exploded  by 
its  decomposition  by  sun  light  and  fractured  the  glass  case  containing  it. 
Not  the  least  pretentious  collection  was  that  of"  Peter  Squire,  F.L.S,, 
sole  dispensing  chemist  to  her  Majesty  the  Queen,"  &c.,  &c.  The  spe- 
cimens purported  to  represent  the  new  British  Pharmacopoeia,  (not 
published  when  the  exhibition  commenced).  No  particular  merit  was^ 
claimed  for  them  except  their  novelty.    Mr.  Squire's  course  in  bringing 
8 
