ON MADDER. 
123 
It is well known that the opium is collected by forming 
some horizontal incisions round the capsules, and allowing 
the juice to flow slowly from it for twenty-four hours. If, 
during this operation, any rain, fog, or moisture should oc- 
cur, the quality of the opium suffers ; a few hours' rain 
suffices entirely to destroy the opium harvest. For this 
reason the poppy is cultivated in Asia Minor, only on the 
large table-lands of Cappadocia and of Phrygia,in the neigh- 
borhood of the town of Karahissar; it is not an excessively 
hot country that is favorable to the cultivation of opium, but 
it is requisite to be nearly certain that there should be no 
rain from the flowering season of the poppy until the opium 
is collected. The poppies are cultivated in Asia Minor on 
irrigated lands. 
One of the causes of the bad quality of the opium col- 
lected in Asia Minor of late years, is the sophistication with 
Armenian bolus and other earths to which it is submitted. 
Ibid, from Comptes Rendus. 
ART. XXXI. — ON MADDER. By M. Girardin, Professor of 
Practical Chemistry at the Municipal School of Rouen. 
(Concluded from page 51.) 
5. On the Adulteration of Madders and Methods of de- 
tecting them. 
On account of the high price of madder, and especially 
from the facility of introducing into this substance, which is 
sold in the form of powder, foreign pulverulent matters, 
which the most practised eye cannot detect, this root is sub- 
ject to a number of sophistications which cannot be too fully 
exposed. 
