,  336 
ON  LEAD  CONTAINED  IN  SOME  SILVER  COINS. 
dant  in  the  American  and  Spanish  coin,  less  was  observed  in  the 
English  and  Mexican,  and  but  little  in  the  French  coin  or  in  the 
American  fine  silver.  Brllel  has  remarked  that  the  process  of 
separating  lead  and  silver  was  less  perfectly  executed  in  the  ages 
of  antiquity  than  is  at  present  the  case,"  [Karsten  u.  Dechens 
ArcJiiv  fur  Mineralogie,  etc.,  1844,  xviii.  509,)  yet  in  none  of 
the  recorded  analyses  of  ancient  silver  coins  has  any  one  detect- 
ed so  large  an  amount  of  lead  as  the  authors  have  shown  to 
occur  in  American  fine  silver  of  the  year  1860,  if  a  single  analy- 
sis of  Prof.  Draper's  be  excepted  which  gave  nearly  three  per 
cent  of  lead  in  a  silver  coin  of  Hadrian.  It  is  probable,  how- 
ever, that  the  n  ethods  of  analysis — none  of  which  are  recorded— 
employed  for  separating  lead  from  silver  by  other  chemists,  were 
less  delicate  than  those  which  the  authors  made  use  of  and  have 
fully  described.  The  occurrence  of  lead  in  the  American  silver 
coin  could  probably  be  mainly,  if  not  altogether,  avoided,  by 
employing  zinc  free  from  lead,  such  as  is  produced  at  the  Zinc 
Works  of  Bethlehem,  Pennsylvania.  It  is  noteworthy  that  the 
American  system  of  amalgamation,  which  has  been  so  frequently 
criticised  by  European  metallurgists,  affords  silver  which  is  less 
strongly  contaminated  with  lead,  and  is  probably  purer  in  other 
respects,  than  is  produced  by  any  other  process  of  manufacture. 
— Sillimans  Journ.  May  1861,  from  Proe.  American  Academy, 
CONVALLARIA  IN  ECCHYMOSIS. 
A  writer  in  the  Medical  Times  and  Gazette  says  :  —  A  cor- 
respondent asks  the  communication  of  an  affective  remedy  for 
ecchymosis  of  the  eye  in  a  lady  patient  who  had  met  with  an  ac- 
cident. One  which  I  have  used  for  a  great  many  years,  never 
disappointing  me,  usually  getting  rid  of  the  blackness  in  a  few 
hours,  is  the  root  of  the  '  Convallaria,'  '  Solomon's  Seal.'  "  It 
should  be  washed,  the  dark  colored  cuticle  carefully  cut  off,  then 
scraped  like  horse-radish,  applied  direct  to  the  eye  in  the  way  of 
a  poultice,  cold.  A  tingling  sensation  is  the  consequence  ;  when 
this  sensation  ceases,  another  fresh  application  should  be  made, 
and  repeated  until  the  whole  ecchymosis  is  absorbed.  I  have 
often  found  it  sufficient  to  apply  the  scraped  root  at  bedtime  to 
the  closed  eye,  when  the  blackness  has  disappeared  by  the  morn- 
ing. The  convallaria  is  readily  found,  and  is  equally  effectual  at 
this  season  of  the  year  Druggists'  Circular. 
