240 
MISCELLANY. 
lution in hot distilled water, filtration and crystallization. On concen- 
trating the liquid containing the chloride of calcium and the wash- 
water from the separated acid, a further quantity of slightly-coloured 
benzoic acid is obtained. 100 parts benzoin from Siam yielded 7 parts 
of pure and l| part of somewhat coloured acid. Another kind gave 
1 1 per cent, pure and 2 per cent, slightly coloured acid. A sample of 
Styrax amygdaloides yielded 13 per cent, pure and 2 per cent, impure 
acid. According to the experiments of the authors, the proportion of 
acid seems to vary in the different kinds, but the Styrax amygdaloides 
appears to contain most. — Ibid, from Arddv. der Pharm. 
Observations on a New Substance brought from America. By M. Gui- 
bourt — In the month of August last M.Leory, a pharmaceutist at Brussels, 
sent me a volatile oil, very remarkable, on account of its flowing abun- 
dantly from a vegetable, without its being necessary to have recourse 
to distillation to obtain it. I much regret that I have neglected this 
communication up to the present time. At Bogota, from whence it is 
brought, this oil is called aceite of amacy. The tree that produces it is 
at present unknown, but it grows abundantly in the moist virgin forests 
in the neighbourhood of Bogota j it contains so large a quantity of the 
essence, that it is sufficient to wound a branch, and suspend a vessel 
from it, to collect a litre in a very few minutes. 
The essence is liquid, of a very pale yellow colour, "not greasy to 
the touch, its taste is sweet at first, then hot, pungent, and bitter. 
Cold, a few degrees above the freezing point, does not render it solid. 
Its smell according to M. Leroy much resembles that of orange blossoms, 
but to me it appeared more like that of the rose, or rather the essence 
of licari, rosewood. M. Goudot, to whom I showed it, told me that 
this essence came from forests situated about seven or eight leagues 
from Bogota, but he was not acquainted with the tree that produced it, 
and that it was employed at Bogota in the adulteration of copaiba. It 
isT in fact, certain that the copaiba that reaches us from Maracaibo and 
other parts of Columbia, much resembles it in smell; this, up to the 
present time, has been attributed to it, solely, on the ground that it 
was produced by a particular species of copaUfira. — Chem.,from Journ. 
de Pharm. 
