ON  SOME  PHARMACEUTICAL  APPARATUS. 
18 
processes  to  create  a  supply.  I  am  not  prepared  to  censure  the  1 
manufacturer  who  thus  subserves  wants  which  our  own  ingenuity 
should  supply,  because  he  is  prompted  only  by  pecuniary  interest, 
as  has  too  often  been  done.  It  is  true  that  we  do  not  labor  under 
the  same  necessities  as  the  great  Davy,  Dalton  and  others,  to 
make  use  of  cups,  vials  and  tobacco  pipes,  etc.,  but  we  must  ac- 
knowledge a  deficiency  of  such  certain  means  as  I  have  alluded 
to ;  we  must  charge  ourselves  with  a  want  of  ingenuity  and  ne- 
glect of  interest;  and  if  we  cannot  see  our  interests  involved,  or 
are  not  impelled  by  the  many  obvious  reasons  to  do  so,  we  are 
not  scientific  pharmaceutists,  but  mere  merchants. 
With  these  preliminary  remarks  I  will  claim  the  attention  of 
the  reader  to  two  pieces  of  apparatus  which  in  my  hands  have 
proved  highly  efficient  and  useful.  The  first  is  designed  for  fil- 
tering fixed  oils  ;  the  second,  for  condensing  vapors  in  the  distilla- 
tion of  watery,  alcoholic  or  ethereal  liquids. 
The  oil  filter  consists  of  an  upper  cy- 
lindrical tinned  iron  vessel  A,  about  22 
inches  high  and  ten  inches  in  diameter, 
with  a  flanch  rim  soldered  on  the  bot- 
tom, of  rather  less  diameter,  and  about 
an  inch  wide,  so  as  to  fit  firmly  into  the 
open  top  of  another  cylindrical  tin  ves- 
sel of  the  same  diameter  and  eighteen 
inches  high.  The  upper  vessel  is  fur- 
nished with  a  lid,  and  with  an  L  shaped 
tube  and  stop  cock  c  which  penetrates  I 
the  side  close  to  the  bottom  and  fits 
^  into  another  tube  c2  at  e  which  tube 
)3  opens  into  the  lower  vessel  close  to  its 
^  bottom,  and  is  secured  to  the  side  of 
B  by  a  strong  tubular  stay. 
The  filtering  medium  is  a  cone  of 
hat-felt,  projecting  upwards  from  near  | 
^  the  bottom  of  the  lower  vessel.  The 
manner  in  which  this  important  part 
of  the  apparatus  is  arranged  is  as  fol- 
lows: just  above  the  bottom  on  the  in- 
side a  tinned  iron  ring  of  the  same  diameter  as  the  inside  of 
the  vessel,  an  inch  wide  and  a  quarter  of  an  inch  thick,  is  securely 
