72       PARAFFIN— ITS  SUBSTITUTION  FOR  WAX  IN  CERATES. 
SPONTANEOUS  DECOMPOSITION  OF  CHLORIDE  OF  LIME. 
By  De.  Hofmann. 
One  morning  (I  think  it  was  in  the  summer  of  1858),  when 
entering  mj  laboratory,  which  I  had  left  in  perfect  order  on  the 
previous  evening,  I  was  surprised  to  find  the  room  in  the  greatest 
confusion.  Broken  bottles  and  fragments  of  apparatus  lay 
about,  several  window-panes  were  smashed,  and  all  the  tables  and 
shelves  were  covered  with  a  dense  layer  of  white  dust.  The 
latter  was  soon  found  to  be  chloride  of  lime,  and  furnished  with- 
out difficulty  the  explanation  of  this  strange  appearance. 
At  the  conclusion  of  the  Great  Exhibition  of  1851,  M.  Kuhl- 
mann,  of  Lille,  had  made  me  a  present  of  the  splendid  collection 
of  chemical  preparations  which  he  had  contributed.  The  beau- 
tiful large  bottles  were  for  a  long  time  kept  as  a  collection  ; 
gradually,  however,  their  contents  proved  too  great  a  temptation, 
and  in  the  course  of  time  all  the  substances  had  been  consumed. 
Only  one  large  bottle,  of  about  10  litres  capacity,  and  filled 
with  chloride  of  lime,  had  resisted  all  attacks  ;  the  stopper  had 
stuck  so  fast  that  nobody  could  get  it  out ;  and  after  many  un- 
successful efforts— no  one  venturing  to  indulge  in  strong 
measures  with  the  handsome  vessel — the  bottle  had  at  last  found 
a  place  on  one  of  the  highest  shelves  of  the  laboratory,  where 
for  years  it  had  remained  lost  in  dust  and  oblivion,  until  it  had 
forced  itself  back  on  our  recollection  by  so  energetic  an  appeal. 
The  explosion  had  been  so  violent  that  the  neck  of  the  bottle 
was  projected  into  the  area,  where  it  was  found  with  the  stopper 
still  firmly  cemented  into  it. 
I  have  not  been  able  to  learn  whether  similar  cases  of  the 
spontaneous  decomposition  of  chloride  of  lime  have  been  already 
observed. — Lond.  Pharm.  Journ.  Sept.  1860„ 
PARAFFIN— ITS  SUBSTITUTION  FOR  WAX  IN  CERATES. 
By  Charles  T.  Carney,  of  Boston. 
In  reply  to  No.  13  on  this  subject,  I  submit  the  following  re- 
marks, w^iich  are  necessarily  very  brief,  not  having  had  the  op- 
portunity of  testing  the  question  by  actual  experiment  as  to 
whether  any  therapeutic  objections  exist  as  to  its  use  :— 
