466 
THEBOLACTIC  ACID. 
fusion,  and  that  ingots  of  the  pure  metal,  weighing  several 
pounds  each,  are  now  on  exhibition  at  Stockholm.  We  are  in- 
formed, too,  that  the  cost  of  obtaining  tungsten  by  the  new 
method  does  not  exceed  a  few  shillings  per  pound.  If  really 
obtainable  thus  cheaply,  a  metal  which  will  bear  exposure  to  so 
intense  a  heat,  without  undergoing  either  fusion  or  oxidation, 
must  prove  of  incalculable  value  to  certain  of  the  arts,  provided 
that  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  working  it  are  not  insuper- 
able. With  the  exception  of  gold  and  platinum,  tungsten  is  the 
heaviest  metal  yet  known.  Its  specific  gravity  is  about  18,  that 
of  gold  being  19-36,  and  that  of  platinum  21-53. — London 
Chem.  News,  August  25,  1865,  from  Mechanics'  Magazine. 
THEBOLACTIC  ACID. 
BY  MESSES.  T.  AND   H.  SMITH. 
As  it  has  been  remarked  that  we  have  never  published  the 
process  for  obtaining  Thebolactic  Acid,  may  we  take  the  liberty 
of  submitting  to  you  the  process  here  embodied,  which  at  the 
first  we  printed,  circulated,  and  supplied  to  the  jurors  of  the 
International  Exhibition  of  1862,  when  the  thebolactic  acid  was 
first  publicly  exhibited?  We  feel  called  upon  to  take  this  step 
by  seeing  in  the  "Dictionary  of  Chemistry"  (by  Watts), 
now  publishing  Thebolactic  Acid  (under  the  head  "Opium") 
classed  as  one  of  the  doubtful  constituents  of  Opium  ;  and  Dr. 
Thomas  Anderson,  Professor  of  Chemistry,  made  responsible 
for  that  doubtful  character.  In  a  paper  read  by  Dr.  Anderson 
at  the  Chemical  Society  on  the  1st  May,  1862,  and  published  in 
the  journal  of  the  Chemical  Society,  thebolactic  acid  is  ranked 
as  one  of  the  "well-determined"  constituents  of  opium  ;  and  in 
a  letter  we  just  have  from  him,  he  says,  "  I  have  never  enter- 
tained any  doubt  as  to  your  having  extracted  from  it  (opium)  an 
acid  which  Stenhouse  found  to  have  the  same  composition  as 
lactic  acid." 
The  ready  crystallizability  of  the  salt  of  lime  gives  the  means 
of  obtaining  the  thebolactic  acid  from  opium. 
After  all  the  alkaloids  have  been  thrown  down  by  an  alkali 
from  the  impure  mother-liquids  of  morphia,  the  concentrated 
