Am*junueni9warm"}      The  Origin  and  Formation  of  Honey.  269 
In  trying  to  perfect  myself  in  polariscope  work,  this  thought  has 
been  a  great  bone  of  contention  in  all  my  laboratory  work.  I  visited 
personally  Professor  Wiley,  chief  of  the  Bureau  of  Chemistry,  and  he 
acknowledged  that  this  was  the  one  great  drawback  in  the  positive 
proof  of  low  reading  right-handed  honeys.  It  did  not  suggest  itself 
at  that  time,  which  was  about  the  year  1895,  that  there  was  any 
method  by  which  positive  proof  could  be  obtained.  In  analyzing 
honey  by  the  polariscope  for  the  Pure  Food  Inspector  of  the  National 
Bee-keepers'  Association  in  nearjy  all  the  Western  States,  I  never 
ran  across  any  honey  which  showed  this  peculiarity  gathered  from 
the  excrescence  of  the  pine. 
In  1902  a  large  syrup-packing  company  of  San  Francisco  shipped 
to  the  East  several  car  loads  of  bottled  honey,  one  car  load  coming 
to  Philadelphia,  and  distributed  by  the  commission  men  to  the 
grocery  trade  generally.  I  secured  several  samples  of  this  honey, 
and  found  that  it  showed  under  the  first  reading  -f-  2-5  and  under  the 
invert  reading  —  1-5.  I  immediately  pronounced  this  as  adulterated, 
and  so  informed  the  trade.  I  had  my  opinion  confirmed  by  L.  F. 
Kebler,  now  of  Washington,  but  at  that  time  chief  chemist  of  the 
Smith,  Kline  &  French  Company. 
I  then  went  to  Washington  and  had  the  same  sample  analyzed 
in  the  Department  Laboratory ;  and  after  a  long  consultation 
with  Professor  Wiley,  he  distinctly  stated  that  while  he  felt  there 
was  a  grave  suspicion  of  adulteration,  it  could  not  be  proven.  In 
other  words,  "  guilty  but  not  proven."  The  Professor  said  it  looked 
to  him  as  if  that  showed  a  trace  of  gathering  from  the  pine  of  Cali- 
fornia. I  was  completely  stunned  in  my  opinion  at  this  conference, 
for  I  felt  that  the  whole  work  of  the  polariscope  was  uncertain  and 
the  whole  chain  of  evidence  was  only  strongest  at  its  weakest  link. 
I  immediately  came  to  the  conclusion  that  there  was  only  one  posi- 
tive proof,  and  that  was  for  a  practical  apiarist  to  visit  the  large 
apiaries  in  the  United  States,  wherever  practicable,  watch  what  the 
bees  were  working  on,  take  the  honey  out  of  the  hives,  and  analyze 
it  for  the  results.  I  started  on  a  three  months'  tour,  costing  me 
$1,500 — visiting  the  large  apiaries  of  the  South  and  West,  going  as 
far  as  Vera  Cruz,  Mexico.  My  closest  and  most  careful  observations 
and  samples  were  from  California,  as  this  sample  of  honey  in 
question  was  said  to  come  from  Santiago  County. 
All  my  samples  gathered  outside  of  California,  except  from 
M^squoit,  in  Texas,  would  show  a  left-hand  first  reading  of  —  8  9, 
